Or are repression and murder necessary to maintain such governments?
Well, in Mexico there was a dictatorship of sorts for almost 70 years in which one party blatantly controlled the government. There were different presidents but they were always from the same party and were handpicked by their predecessor.
Except for the lack of political freedom and one pretty big exception in 1968, those 70 years are considered by revisionist historians to have been some of the best for Mexico, especially the 40’s and 50’s. But, like I said, it was a dictatorship by a party, not one man.
Well, there was Ashoka. I don’t know of a modern equivalent.
Would monarchies count?
Please don’t anyone say Fidel Castro, really.
Sure, plenty. Every dictatorship is benevolent to those on the side of the dictator.
You only repress and murder your opponents!
Define “benevolent”.
By today’s standards, any dictatorship would by definition be non-benevolent, since it would by definition be depriving people of rights of self-governance, along with related freedoms like free speech etc.
But there have certainly been dictatorships over the years that have been vastly popular, in times when such governments were expected and accepted, and a given dictator/king was judged by the standard of how he compared to other dictator/kings.
Not sure if that answers the question, or in fact what is the question, as above.
The Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore) raised the standard of living in their countries dramatically over a relatively short time period. I’m not sure about Hong Kong, but in the other three cases (and Japan) it was accomplished without what we would recognize as a participatory democracy.
I can’t come up with an example in recent European history. In the Middle East you may consider Anwar Sadat a benevolent dictator, depending on how you weigh his actions.
It depends on your definition of “benevolent.”
A dictator will not tolerate direct dissent, and will arrest or kill anyone who challenges his power. To that extent, he can’t be wholly benevolent. Nice guys don’t get to be dictators, and wouldn’t STAY dictators long if they tolerated those who try to undermine them.
Within those considerable limits, however, some dictators have admirable goals for their societies, work hard to provide for the economic needs of their people, and will allow a fair amount of freedom for any people or institutions that pose no direct challenges to him.
Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew is one example of such a dictator. Most people in Singapore think their lives improved subtsntially under his rule. Not all liked him, but relatively few chafed under his rule.
I think the UAE and Qatar are benevolent dictatorships. There is decent press freedom (more so in Qatar), and the standard of living is good, people are generally free.
Ahhhhhh you beat me to it.
Hong Kong didn’t have even have a procedural democracy. The Governor of Hong Kong actively ran the government with the assistance of officials appointed by him and a Legislative Council that had no elected members at all until 1991.
Singapore. If state killing is your metric then there has never been a benevolent any form of government, but I think modern Singpore under Lee Kwan Yew is pretty applicable.
The old Inca Empire was a rather benevolent totalitarian-socialist dictatorship. There was no market – fields were communal and worked by everybody in the village; all produce was collected and distributed by government accountants. It worked well enough – amazing, in fact, for a Stone Age civilization with no draft animal larger than a llama and the territory cut up by numberless rope-bridged gorges. Nobody went hungry and the emperor lived not much better than his subjects. The empire was expanded sometimes by conquest, but sometimes by inviting neighboring peoples to join voluntarily, and some did.
Fidel Castro.
[sub]You knew someone was going to do it[/sub]
What about Josep Broz, aka “Tito” of Yugoslavia?
How about the Vatican? The Popes are effectively dictators.
My impression was that Gen. Franco was prett much a “benevolent” dictator. It was very clear what the rules were-if you followed them, you were OK. Of course, no dissent was allowed, but you knew that (in the Civil War).
Absolute monarch != dictator. Of course, some Popes HAVE been despots, but that doesn’t make them dictators.