# Has authoritarianism ever done better than democracy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 16, 2023, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899 "2023-02-16T16:33:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2023, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/41 "2023-02-17T02:20:39Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Look at another example, the American Indian boarding schools operated both by private groups (often religious) and various governments within living memory, where students were compelled to worship the Christian God, speak English, adopt “white” names, and otherwise conform to the dominant lifestyle. I agree that there were Indian schools where missionaries were brought in to Christianize the children, and that this is a good example of your thesis. I just don’t see, in the 1919 Alabama law you quoted, a need for the child to do anything other than listen to Elizabethan English. [Compare and contrast with this Evangelical-inspired text, used in Alabama today.](https://www.bibleinschools.net/News/Alabama-Adopts-New-Textbook-for-Academic-Study-of-the-Bible.php) I see a church-state issue with pollyanna Christmas gifting, and festive trees, since children are encouraged to participate in a positive appealing aspect of American Christianity. But the Bible doesn’t have a self-interpreting message (or where is does, said message is contradicted somewhere else). As a result, being read to from an Elizabethan Bible did not influence religion change. And it may have helped prepare us for Shakespeare. P.S. I guess this got away from the great debate, other than my continuing point that democracy is hard to define. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2023, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/42 "2023-02-17T09:31:39Z")
you could claim that average Russians improved economically under Stalin compared to serfdom ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2023, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/43 "2023-02-17T10:41:13Z")
The oversimplified take is: Good dictatorship \> democracy \> bad dictatorship. If done **well** , dictatorship is a form of government that would deliver better results more powerfully and rapidly than any other known form of governance. Unfortunately, the vast majority of dictatorships aren’t good. So, on average, democracies outperform regimes. To answer the OP’s question 2#, it’s because everyone who yearns for dictatorship fancies themselves to be on the oppressing side, not on the being-oppressed side. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2023, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/44 "2023-02-17T14:05:01Z")
> [@fedman1](#): > > you could claim that average Russians improved economically under Stalin compared to serfdom Serfdom was abolished in [1861](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_reform_of_1861). Timewise that’s like saying the average American improved economically under FDR compared to prior to the Civil War and the abolishment of slavery. Ignoring the sudden time jump, all it’s saying is that conditions for the average person living in an authoritarian totalitarian dictatorship were better than those living under an archaic authoritarian feudal monarchy; neither was remotely democratic. There’s also the important caveat that you’re only counting those living in the Stalinist Soviet Union, sidestepping the millions he killed, and sidestepping the gulag system, under which millions more lived economic lives far worse than serfdom. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2023, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/45 "2023-02-17T17:25:28Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > 1. If the answer to the first is no, then why do so many people, especially those who were raised in a democracy, want to go with an authoritarian government? Don’t they realize that life would be worse for them if they got their wish? Because they feel there are a lot of domestic and external threats, and they feel an authoritarian government would do a better job of dealing with those threats. Especially when those threats come from things like multiculturalism. The south under Jim Crow was very authoritarian, but really only for black people (and women). if you were a white man you had a lot of rights. Thats the kind of authoritarianism that seems popular nowadays, one where the out groups live in a dictatorship but the in groups still have all their rights. ---
**Author:** ![EastUmpqua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eastumpqua/32/6025_2.png) [@EastUmpqua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EastUmpqua)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2023, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/46 "2023-02-17T18:39:46Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > I’m not arguing that school Bible readings are necessarily authoritarian, but merely pushing back against @EastUmpqua’s assertion that the shit would hit the fan if the people in charge ever told people what they can worship. I should have said shit would hit the fan if people in charge ever told people what they **can’t** worship. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2023, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/47 "2023-02-17T19:16:01Z")
> [@EastUmpqua](#): > > I should have said shit would hit the fan if people in charge ever told people what they **can’t** worship. Nope, that doesn’t work any better. The American Indian boarding schools mentioned above generally disallowed worshiping non-Christian gods, while in the 21st century the forcible conversion of South Asian Indian Christians and Muslims to Hinduism remain ongoing problems in the world’s largest democracy. As long as the group being told what they can’t worship is viewed by the majority of the community as outliers, the ‘out’ group being told who/what they can’t worship is not a cause for concern in the ‘in’ group. ---
**Author:** ![EastUmpqua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eastumpqua/32/6025_2.png) [@EastUmpqua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EastUmpqua)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2023, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/48 "2023-02-17T19:24:11Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > while in the 21st century the forcible conversion of South Asian Indian Christians and Muslims to Hinduism remain ongoing problems in the world’s largest democracy My apologies. I was referring to N. America. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2023, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/49 "2023-02-17T19:37:21Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > The south under Jim Crow was very authoritarian, but really only for black people (and women). if you were a white man you had a lot of rights. Thats the kind of authoritarianism that seems popular nowadays, one where the out groups live in a dictatorship but the in groups still have all their rights. Sort of. I agree that the people in the out group, having no say on the matter, can’t be blamed for living under an authoritarian (for them) system. Of course even the people in the “in” group don’t really have all their rights. A white cis-male in the South in the 60s, for example, would likely be oppressed (admittedly to a lesser degree than a Black person or a Native American) for being a hippy. The bigger point is that unless you were one of the very few white men at the very top of the ladder, you wouldn’t benefit any more than you would under a system that didn’t oppress minorities. There’s plenty of other examples as well. Does the average Han Chinese benefit from the oppression of the Uyghurs? Does the average Turkish person benefit from the oppression of the Kurds? Does the average Serb benefit from oppression of Kosovars? Does the average Christian benefit from oppression of LGBQT people? In all those cases I think the answer is no. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2023, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/50 "2023-02-17T19:42:19Z")
Do they _actually_ benefit? I agree the answer is “no”. Do they _beleive_ they benefit? You bet they do. They are certain that a society that lacks e.g. LGBTQ people is a better society for themselves. And that’s all that matters to them; that it be better for themselves. The mere presence of The Other is distressing to the hyper-conformist mindset that desires authoritarian rule. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2023, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/51 "2023-02-17T19:43:54Z")
The American Indian boarding schools were in North America (the US and Canada). For older examples, consider the forcible conversion of American Indians to Catholicism in the Spanish Empire, including Mexico and points north, or the old southern slave codes that prohibited slaves or free blacks from preaching to other slaves or free blacks “unless licensed by some regular body of professing Christians immediately in the neighborhood” (quoting the Alabama Slave Code of 1833, sec. 42), which meant of course that Muslim or other non-Christian preachers were subject to the lash. ---
**Author:** ![EastUmpqua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eastumpqua/32/6025_2.png) [@EastUmpqua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EastUmpqua)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2023, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/52 "2023-02-18T21:32:02Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > The American Indian boarding schools were in North America (the US and Canada). We are moving on from that because we can’t change the past. > [@EastUmpqua](#): > > If you tell people what they can buy, where they can live or what to worship, shit hits the fan. I was talking more about modern times. > [@EastUmpqua](#): > > I don’t think the US would need external aid. The resistance to (theocratic, authoritarian) government here is domestic, traditional, and strong. I was talking about this. It’s not directly related to the OP, so I’ll back off. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2023, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/53 "2023-02-19T10:20:00Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > How do you compute “better outcomes”? Let’s go with life expectancy. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2023, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/54 "2023-02-19T10:53:27Z")
I also like “Nobel prizes per capita” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2023, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/55 "2023-02-19T11:02:20Z")
By my calculations, then, Saint Lucia is 10 times better than the United States. Got it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2023, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/56 "2023-02-19T11:07:01Z")
Yes, that metric is quite sensitive to outliers. Please ignore the smallest countries;) ---
**Author:** ![EastUmpqua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eastumpqua/32/6025_2.png) [@EastUmpqua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EastUmpqua)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2023, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/57 "2023-02-19T19:54:35Z")
I’d like to add the caliber of the University system as a metric. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2023, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/58 "2023-02-19T20:32:37Z")
I’ll say that authoritarianism has worked (by whatever metric of worked you use) better than many _failed_ attempts at democracy. In many poor, unstable countries democracy seemed to be incapable of solving society’s problems, or competing against calls for communist revolutions. The Kerensky Republic and Weimar Germany are the uber examples. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2023, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/59 "2023-02-19T20:53:00Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Bush’s invasion of Iraq I’m surprised this is the only mention of Iraq in the thread so far. Iraq may be the exception that proves the rule. Iraqis did not have a wonderful existence while Saddam was in charge but I would be willing to bet they vastly preferred it to what came after. Although on preview: > [@Lumpy](#): > > I’ll say that authoritarianism has worked (by whatever metric of worked you use) better than many _failed_ attempts at democracy. I think this is Iraq in a nutshell. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2023, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899/60 "2023-02-21T03:40:04Z")
> [@EastUmpqua](#): > > The resistance to (theocratic, authoritarian) government here is domestic, traditional, and strong. But support for theocratic, authoritarian government here in the US is also domestic, traditional, and strong. That’s been the case ever since colonial days, which included both the religious liberty of early Rhode Island and the rigid, dissenter-banishing Puritanism of Massachusetts colonies. It’s true that active and committed anti-democracy advocates are still a minority among Americans. But they’re not a tiny or negligible minority, and I don’t think it would be a good idea to be complacent about their presumed harmlessness. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-authoritarianism-ever-done-better-than-democracy/979899.md?page=4)