Do you agree that there might be societies which need the occasional bloody governmental intervention? If not, what makes to say so? — Mongrel

There's not one system of government that hasn't failed - monarchy, aristocracy, communism, dictatorships and even democracy. By fail I mean the inability to keep its population happy and achieve some or all goals that define progress as we know it.

It appears that all societies, irrespective of their political systems, are treading the fine line between total chaos and total oppression.

So, I think we should put all political systems in the dock and not only dictatorships.

Assad and the Kremlin are clear examples of kleptocracy and strong, bloodthirsty businessmen in governance. Nuclear deterrence may be the price of stability but the fact that we have nuclear weapons is the very reason for the deterrence; it is only an option the other way around, when an apolitical society has enough of being exploited.

Leaving aside the self-flagellating irony of your Palestinan friend's comment for the moment, does the dicator have to be bloodthirsty? Are bloodless coups and "benign" dictatorships ruled out? I'm thinking here of the example of Thailand where the establishment of a military junta halted a conflict that was spiraling out of control and in the process almost certainly saved lives.

Are bloodless coups and "benign" dictatorships ruled out? I'm thinking here of the example of Thailand where the establishment of a military junta halted a conflict that was spiraling out of control and in the process almost certainly saved lives. — Baden

The establishment of the military junta in Syria in '63 initially saved lives but what is questionable is the longevity. Corruption in Thailand is rampant to say the least, not least the drug and human trafficking.

In Turkey, the military has saved the country from political corruption a number of times [think '83 and the sweeping changes to the constitution] but at the cost of many lives; however, there is a long historical tradition behind it and though there is currently a gradual decline in their powers due to the AKP' political and social influence, the condition of this stability is becoming a major concern as seen with their consistently deranged and paternal outbursts to the international community.

It seems to me that every state believes what your friend states -- the disagreement isn't that there are some people with whom one must deal violently in order to have stability, but rather the manner in which you choose those people, and how violently you kick with it.

In the United States, for instance, we have the world's largest prison population. Our violence towards African American communities is far from bloodless, as well.

The appropriate distribution of violence is the business of the state. Whether that be a democracy or a dictatorship -- this is just a quibble on procedure in relation to that fact.


Which is just to say that your friend could only be wrong if one were an anarchist. Otherwise the disagreement is only about who deserves the boot and how those people are selected. I know which kind of state I prefer, but it's worth noting because it's not like your friend is wrong even by our own practices. He just thinks Assad is better than the alternatives.

The problem is not so much that a dictator can't be good, but rather there are increasingly less effective ways to get rid of the bad ones. They used to get assassinated in fairly short order, but that doesn't happen much any more.

If you have a hoard of neanderthals who can only be persuaded to abide rules via head-injury, then a brutal dictator seems well warranted.

Dictatorship doesn't have to be malevolent though, it's been said that a "benevolent king" is the best form of government because it looks after the interests of the people without the bureaucracy of decentralized leadership. A modern Charlemagne might unite us all through force and then deliver us into a new era of abundance and human civilization, at which point not too many people would regard it as a bad move. So really it depends on the dictator and on the government as much as it does on the people.

There probably is room for an argument that dictatorship is generally "the best" option for some possible social or technological landscapes, but none too applicable to the current world.

When hierarchies of power emerge in the context of feudal barbarism they inherently stabilize and reduce the amount of death and destruction that arises from chaotic conflict, because the pecking order establishes who can do what to who and get away with it (as opposed to everyone attacking everyone else to find out, to great expense). This phenomenon plays out on many levels. First within families, then within in communities, then between communities, which leads to the rise of nations, then between nations, which leads to the rise of empires.

Before each step in the evolution and progress of human civilization, we see competition and conflict which gives rise to singular and dominant dictatorial forces who consolidate power and set the stage for the next tier of human activity. We were already pretty deep in a complex hierarchy of allegiance and dominance before democracy turned up, which arguably resulted from changes to the intrinsic power of the masses such that the old pecking orders were overturned. With the advent of the newspaper (for instance), parents had less direct control over what ideas, beliefs and allegiances could be drummed into their children's heads. Local authorities lost some power to police their communities as cheap print carried criticism and stirred outrage all the way to the capitols. When the conflicts finally happened and the old dictators were dethroned, the same organizational forces which gave the people the power to do so became the de-facto new ruling force. The emergent and pulsing will of the people, perceivable only through shared mass media until it's plastic arm is raised in violence, can only exist and is only as effective as there are systems of mass communication and an engaged and well-informed public. If you don't have these things then possibly a benevolent dictator, who like a parent knows what's best, would be best

There are people who think that some countries are ill-served by encouraging them to set up democratic governments. "the people are not ready for self-government" the theory goes. A given country might have too many competing ethnic groups within its border -- ethnic groups that had never wished to live together--for democracy to work. These kinds of states are better off, the theory goes, if a strong man rules over them. A dictatorship, authoritarian rule.

While a country may have a great many political fault lines within its society, dictatorship does nothing (usually) to prepare people to live together without dictatorship. Tito managed to keep the lid on all the seething ethic rivalries in Yugoslavia until the Communist Party's rule ended around 1990. 50 years of suppressing The Peoples' ethnic itches resulted in an orgy of genocidal activity of the sort one associates with Nazi Germany.

The colonial powers of the 19th and 20th centuries are largely responsible for constructing countries that are difficult to govern, They either drew national boundaries (in the middle east) that made very little sense, or (in Africa) they arranged boundaries to disadvantage ethnic groups. Ethnic groups like the Kurds were left out altogether. In Kenya the Kikuyu and Luo groups (and quite a few others compete for power, privilege, and resources.

The trouble with dictatorships is that considerable force is generally required to get into, stay in, and exercise power. Usually the military and secret police are employed as the shaft that makes people obey. How much shafting is employed usually depends how much resistance is developed, or how paranoid and unstable the ruling cliques are. The results are sometimes tolerable and stable, but all too often (like, usually) the amount of shafting employed generates more resistance, more paranoia, and more violence in a hell-bound spiral.

So, how does one set up a multi-ethnic government in Kenya, Syria, or...?

One solution is to balkanize the country--and maybe regions. Give small territories to the groups that dominate them (the way the Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, Kosovoites, and Albanians were sorted out). This makes sense, especially if there are strong historical precedents. Lots of countries and regions have histories that preceded the colonial era, and are remembered.

IF, and it is a big IF, the small homogeneous states can get their stuff together and operate successfully, fine. If two adjacent mini-states want to merge, do so and make it work, fine. Otherwise, don't merge.

Shia and Sunni populations may be at each others throats because they were manipulated into this antagonism (recently). Maybe propaganda can manipulate them back into peaceable community. Maybe not. Maybe separate territories need to be allocated -- not for each and every one, but enough separation so that they, as 2 (3, or 4) separate groups feel like they have their own space.

Maybe the dictator (Assad for Syria) needs to be eliminated, by some effective means or another. There are major risks, here, which is one of the reasons it hasn't happened. The Assad family has a ghastly history, but in most years there were hardly any large scale massacres. Just a few. Pull the Assad plug and there might be a period of (worse) bloody reprisals--even worse than Assad. Iraq had problems before the Americans arrived, true enough, but our abrupt plug pulling on Saddam Hussein and the Baathist party cause a massive deterioration in conditions, as bad as, if not worse than the excesses of mr. Hussein.

Draining swamps needs to be done with great finesse. Just pulling the plug can backfire badly.

There are people who think that some countries are ill-served by encouraging them to set up democratic governments. "the people are not ready for self-government" the theory goes. A given country might have too many competing ethnic groups within its border -- ethnic groups that had never wished to live together--for democracy to work. These kinds of states are better off, the theory goes, if a strong man rules over them. A dictatorship, authoritarian rule.

I think democracy is difficult in many countries because of their tribal orientation. Places where your role in life is first seen as a member of such and such a family. Of course we all have families and family histories, but in many countries this information if more than idle curiosity, it forms the basis for social status ethnic biases, hates, likes and so on. A family hierarchy--tree with all its heraldic baggage What you do, your role in society...may not be fully determined by your familial status but its influence is strong, and it influences how you and others see yourself. There are typically very few extended families, or associations outside of family in these types of society.

Leaving aside the self-flagellating irony of your Palestinan friend's comment for the moment, does the dicator have to be bloodthirsty? Are bloodless coups and "benign" dictatorships ruled out? I'm thinking here of the example of Thailand where the establishment of a military junta halted a conflict that was spiraling out of control and in the process almost certainly saved lives. — Baden

I don't think he's self flagellating. He's not Syrian.

You're right, though. It's really ruthlessness I was asking about.. not so much dictatorship. I think most of the dictatorships I know of were pretty ruthless.

There's not one system of government that hasn't failed — TheMadFool

Yep. But they do pretty well prior to failure, don't they?

In the United States, for instance, we have the world's largest prison population. Our violence towards African American communities is far from bloodless, as well. — Moliere

True. So if we started public executions, do you think the crime rate would go down, or stay the same?

So are you saying that the effectiveness of dictatorship is a function of time period (as opposed to culture)?

I think I might agree with that. It's basically a theory of social cycles, right?

The colonial powers of the 19th and 20th centuries are largely responsible for constructing countries that are difficult to govern, — Bitter Crank

That's true. When you take something that grew organically over centuries and replace it with a mangled mess of codified British law and explicit racism, the resulting society may be hyper-conservative.. just trying to hold itself together. Is that what you mean?

That's true. When you take something that grew organically over centuries and replace it with a mangled mess of codified British law and explicit racism, the resulting society may be hyper-conservative.. just trying to hold itself together. Is that what you mean? — Mongrel

Well, some of what you said here is true, but what I meant was that the British laid down territorial boundaries in such a way as to divide ethnic homelands, mix ethnic groups who didn't have overflowing love for each other, and allocated resources so as to aggravate competition among groups. In other words, divide and conquer. When they abandoned their colonial management, the colonial boundaries stuck, leaving sliced and diced populations. They did this in a number of places.

Colonialism, per se, is racist when your colonies are mostly on colored continents. British law and administrative practice wasn't all bad. Some observers think British controlled Africa would be better off now if the British had had longer tenure, giving them more time to inculcate their management and civil government practices. Greater India had a thorough education in British administrative practice. (Here I'm referencing record keeping, filing, reporting, counting, investigating, balancing the books, stuff like that. British rule in India didn't put them in line for the Nobel Humanitarian Prize. They were often harsh.) Further, British management brought Indian merchants to Africa where they became one more pain in the collective of the local people. The Indians weren't equal to the British, but they were superior to the blacks, and they controlled a lot of the local commerce and trade.

Then, over all, the purpose of having colonies in the first place is/was to extract wealth from the natives, which the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgians, and Germans most efficiently and ruthlessly did.

True. So if we started public executions, do you think the crime rate would go down, or stay the same? — Mongrel

In earlier times, public executions enabled prostitutes and pick pockets to do land office business. Of course, in earlier times capital punishment covered some crimes we classify as misdemeanors.

There's not one system of government that hasn't failed
— TheMadFool

Yep. But they do pretty well prior to failure, don't they? — Mongrel

I can't think of many places that go months, let alone decades, without functioning governments. "Failed states" are pretty bad places to live. Many people in Russia miss the Soviet Union because, despite its egregious bad practices, it also provided pretty good services to people. As one US immigrant from the Soviet Union said, "There were always offices where one could go with specific problems, and they generally did something about the problem." Provided there was a solution, of course.

Given a housing shortage, the local communist apparatchiks weren't going to give you a bigger place just because the one you had was kind of small and crowded. On the other hand, they could get the heat working again. They could resolve a lot of administrative problems (but not get your husband out of Siberia, just because his wife wanted him back).

Remain the same, I'd wager.

Yes, very good observation. I don't know much about this, but I do know that tribe/family is an essential structure in some countries. An overlay of democratic (or autocratic) government is likely to chafe on the underlying system of loyalties. Glad I don't live in such a place.

So are you saying that the effectiveness of dictatorship is a function of time period (as opposed to culture)? — Mongrel

Primarily I think it's a function of certain technological and social landscapes.

Broadly, I think dictatorship can be "best" if it can bring to heel disparate groups set to destroy one another. Why they want to destroy each-other might be cultural, but not necessarily. This might not be a great or apt example, but it's plausible that many contemporary nations would happily go to war against their neighbors if the US and it's army wasn't around to make them think better of it. Ending American dominance in the world could lead to short term chaos as the world re-balances, and there's a chance but no guarantee that what we wind up with down the road is any better than what we have now. Whether or not it's a change worth undergoing in this case is too complex to be predicted.

Technological landscapes can make and break democracies/dictatorships because without some form of mass media and communication, organizing a democracy is extremely difficult or impossible. Without the ability to openly communicate, like minded groups cannot form or mobilize coherent political agendas and democracy never gets off the ground. Dictatorships on the other hand need to reduce and control open communication for the purpose drumming support for the state, but more importantly to prevent possible opposition from coalescing. Speaking in terms of raw efficiency, this makes most of human history unfit for the practice of democracy (at least beyond a local/communal level), and perfect for dictators who managed public opinion/revolt with ease; the introduction of the book and the newspaper in my opinion marked the point at which the geographically/demographically vast states we live in became somewhat fit for democratic rule.

Since their arrival, books have been banned and burned, and the newspaper is dying a slow and tenacious death, but now the internet has arrived and along with it more communication than we know what to do with. Dissatisfaction as a motivational force has become unfathomably amplified as opposition groups spread and grow over social networks at an incredible pace. Dictatorships are more at odds with the inter-connected world than ever before as they metabolize the increased dissatisfaction (what they do well), and democratic states are undergoing change when and where the current status quo permits or is overturned. It's possible that complete informational (and dis-informational) saturation will spoil the utility of the internet as healthy for democracy, and it's also possible that the desires of different subgroups (for example: an ethnic groups desire for self-determination) become so organized that we're forced to balkanize and break up into smaller states as Bitter Crank points out; but for autocratic states the internet is absolute poison to their well-being. Even the global autocracy of America and it's Western retinue is being challenged by opposition which can only successfully organize through the internet.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that better and worse strategies of governance are relative to the changing circumstances of the governed, and in the case of democracy perhaps most notably by the free availability and reach of mass communication technology.

I agree and postcolonial states that have transitioned to a democratic state often trended toward one-party systems because of their struggles to transform to the precipitating social demands that democracy negotiates. It needs to be a natural development where the community or citizens themselves demand it rather than it being imposed by and consolidated through global forces. In many African cultures, leadership is often dominated by tribal lineage but I think Mandela modelled his sociopolitical platform on a unique version of democracy that nurtured the continuity of democracy by adapting to tribal attitudes at large.