Benign dictator vs bad democracy

The typical political axiom is "even a bad democracy is better than a benign dictator". No matter how good or benevolent an autocratic ruler might be, it would still be worse than even a poorly functioning democracy. Is this true? Isn't the latter just a different form of the former in some cases? Opinions?

There are several factors to this question:

I dont see the point in a bad democracy.

I suspect the OP is a libertarian trap, or the following idea couched in different terms e.g.
Democracy is but the dictatorship or tyranny of the majority over the minority etc


Edited by ExittheLemming - June 20 2012 at 03:43

Depends what you mean by bad democracy. A corrupt electoral system, or a system where all the parties on offer essentially stand for the same thing, and serve the same corporate interests, but present themselves differently, to preserve the illusion of choice. Obviously, I can't think of any actual examples of this..

When it comes to dictatroships, these are bad by definition, in my opinion, but it seems our 'democratically' elected governments are selective in their condemnation or support of such regimes. This is why the west is happy to arm the Saudi and Bharaini regimes with weapons to oppress their people, but will go to war with the likes of Gaddaffi for opressing his.

It's tempting to see the world in very simplistic 'good vs evil' terms, but the reality is very different. There's good and bad on all sides, and there is really just different 'perspectives'

OK, so this is going to be a classic tldr post, so apologies for that, but this topic has struck a chord with me.

I have genuinely given this question a lot of serious thought in recent months as I've felt my faith in our democratic system get gradually eroded. Seven years ago I got to vote for the first time in a general election and I was pretty excited about that. My vote didn't make a jot of difference in the actual constituency (I voted Lib Dem in a safe Tory seat) but that didn't rankle me as much as it probably should have.

Back in 2010 things looked very different - I was frightened at the prospect of a Tory government, but oddly excited at the possibility of a hung parliament, which a lot of people (myself included) assumed would force the centre-left majority (i.e. Labour and the Lib Dems) to work together in order to keep out the Tories. Again, my personal vote made no difference, as the constituency I was now voting in switched from Labour (the party of complacency, war-mongering and well-meaning but ultimately ineffective and ocassionally damaging tinkering with our public services) to the Tories (the party of unmitigated evil).

I watched the results come in live until about 4am when it became clear that nothing was going to be decided for DAYS yet. I remember how baffled I was when the coalition government was formed - a government that basically NOBODY who'd voted in the last election actually wanted; one that suited no one but a tiny political elite who were intent on saving their skin and/or grasping a bit of power. It'll only last a couple of months, I told myself, and besides at least there's the AV referendum now - a chance to tweak that broken system and give purpose to my vote which, as has been made clear, has historically had f**k all impact on the results either general election I've voted in. I spent the weeks leading up to that referendum mercilessly lobbying my friends and family, explaining every single way in which it was vital they voted and, preferably, voted yes. I don't think I changed a single mind - a couple of my friends that would've voted yes anyway dutifully did so, my mother voted no and when I asked her why she didn't really have a legitimate response, she was just worried about the fabricated "cost" of the change which I'd spent a lot of time debunking for her in an effort to persuade her to make a small change for the benefit of our democracy.

As we know, the turnout for the referendum was disastrously low - faith in our democratic system is so low that most voters just didn't care how their votes were counted and thus, how their will is represented in government. And with it went, in all likelihood, the only chance at changing our system I'll see in my lifetime. We're stuck now, stuck with a system that rewards complacency, career politicians with no life experience and totally disregards the vote of a significant number of citizens in every poll.

There are no politicians that represent me, no one who says what I believe (even if they think it, the media would ensure their career was over the second they voiced any of my more "controversial" - i.e. not centre-right - views) or has the balls to suggest radical new ways to nurture our society, our environment, our economy, our relationship with other countries. I shan't be voting in the next general election, and even if I did it wouldn't matter one f**king jot as once again I live in a Conservative "safe seat".

I have no faith in democracy. Bring on the benign dictators!

A benign dictator is better than a bad democracy: okay, he would send "bad people" to jail, but it's for your sake! He would forbid some political parties or some religious movements, he would pronounce death sentences, he would crush any demonstration... BUT IT WOULD BE FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!

Actually, the holder of authoritarian power in bad-democracy country is always a bad dictator. Because he's afraid to call himself a dictator, as a dictator is responsible for everything in country, and bad dictator in pseudo-democracy is trying to hide himself behind the backs of someone another and always trying to make someone another responsible for anything that is going there in his country. A good example of bad dictator from a pseudo-democratic country is Vladimir Putin.

Edited by ole-the-first - June 20 2012 at 09:59

Name me a benign in history...

I've been saying for over 20 years now that what this country needs is a benign dictator.  Of course, definitions of what is benign vary depending on what your p.o.v. is.  I think my calls for a benign dictatorship however has more to do with my distrust of the intelligence of the American electorate rather than my belief in any inherent flaws in democracy.