Would you rather live in a liberal dictatorship or illiberal democracy?

[Hygro]

And why?

 

[Kyriakos]

Illiberal dictatorship. Why vote for the lesser evil?

 

[Samson]

I guess there is a question about the definition of liberal / illiberal, but assuming we are talking about the important things that affect my quality of life, such as freedom of thought, speech, association and movement, lack of state violence against me, environmental responsibility, things that I really care about I would have to choose liberal dictatorship. I really believe that democracy is the best way we have come up with to ensure that the rules are acceptable, in the end it is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

 

[El_Machinae]

The universe itself is a dictatorship, with very strong cause-and-effect* and no say in the changing thereof. And I guess my answer is 'no'.
What's the difference between a dictatorship and a democracy? Implicitly, if someone doesn't vote, they're living in a dictatorship. On my end, what makes my country tolerable is the Constitutional Rights that the majority has (a little) difficulty infringing on plus reasonable Rule-of-Law. For any practical purposes, my votes have never mattered.

*shush about QM

 

[stinkubus]

I'll do you one better: when Nancy Pelosi goes on TV and says something along the lines of, "We're capitalist, that's just how it is" she's telling you to your face that you already live in a dictatorship and the elections are mostly for show/manufacture of consent.

Bourgeoisie democracies will always be smoke screens because the instant the public turns against them capital is just going to do away with it.

If we can safely supplant "dictatorship of the proletariat" for "liberal dictatorship" then sign me up. If the workers ever get control of a state as large and powerful as the USA they better never let go.

 

[Kyriakos]

Direct democracy would be preferable, and it'd require various levels of nested voting groups.
In that way, its the opposite extreme of a dictatorship, since the degree of centralization is very low.

You can't meaningfully speak of a democracy when there are millions of votes and relative lack of meaningful regional centers of policy-forming. Although some states are better in this than others...

 

[Josu]

Can you please define Liberal and Illiberal?
Are we talking about the classic and wide conception of Liberal? Or does it include those who are just economic liberal?

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Without definition I cannot answer

 

[Zardnaar]

Examples perhaps? What's a liberal dictatorship?

 

[Samson]

Illiberal dictatorship, as long as I am the dictator.

 

[Sarin]

Liberal dictatorship.

Only really capable dictators can afford to be liberal. So liberal dictatorship implies it's really well run.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I can't think of an example of a liberal dictatorship and don't believe the concept makes sense.
Benevolent dictatorship makes more sense as a concept even if in reality they are pretty scarce.
I think I'd rather live in an illiberal democracy (and would say I do) than an illiberal dictatorship.

 

[Lexicus]

Illiberal democracy all the way baby.

Some good examples of liberal dictatorships are current Singapore, early Mussolini, Chile under Pinochet, Germany under the Kaiser.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Illiberal democracy all the way baby.

Some good examples of liberal dictatorships are current Singapore, early Mussolini, Chile under Pinochet, Germany under the Kaiser.

I wouldn't call any of them liberal (although Germany under the kaiser was as democratic as the countries it fought).

 

[amadeus]

Illiberal dictatorship, as long as I am the dictator.

Can I be in your cabinet? What would my role be?

In a sense I already live in a liberal dictatorship since my foreign citizenship does not entitle me to voting rights. No, I don’t have any intent as of yet to naturalize.

 

[Zardnaar]

Illiberal democracy all the way baby.

Some good examples of liberal dictatorships are current Singapore, early Mussolini, Chile under Pinochet, Germany under the Kaiser.

I was thinking of Singapore. Aren't they technically a hybrid regime?

 

[red_elk]

Benign dictatorship. Most people cannot make responsible choice of the leader. They will vote for anyone who promises easy solutions to their problems.
Build the wall, imprison the oligarchs, you name it.

 

[innonimatu]

Benign dictatorship. Most people cannot make responsible choice of the leader. They will vote for anyone who promises easy solutions to their problems.
Build the wall, imprison the oligarchs, you name it.

No. People can make responsible choices.

In those places where they are not given a choice, where the regime is not a democracy and has rules that prevent one from working, there people can only make unreasonable choices because those are the only ones given.

Neither the USA nor Russia nor the EU countries are democracies. The means of propaganda are monopolized by a few interests and actively managed to convince people that TINA.

The larger the polity the easier this is because it acts chiefly through discouragement of political participation. The barriers to active political engagement, running for office, are higher in larger polities: politicians need to find funding from... the oligarchs, who else has the scale to support large campaigns necessary on large polities? Honesty is harder to scrutinize and the candidate is known through a managed media image, not personally. Barriers to democracy are a structural part of large polities.
And all this also discourages the simple but crucial participation of merely voting, obviously.

The EU manages it in a slightly different way but with the same aim of discouraging participation and thus keeping a small caste necessarily abundant in corrupt individuals in power. In the EU it's the supra-national rules and laws that discourage participation: doesn't matter who wins the election, TINA because treaties.

In smaller countries outside empires or would-be empires the population can be scared and discouraged either through threat of foreign attack, or actual attack. But some manage to fend that off diplomatically and still be responsive to tier citizen's will. Better would would be one without any empires to protect and spread the influence of oligarchs.

You want a philosopher-king. Putin partly played that role. But kings die, the oligarchy strikes deals, it reasserts itself because it's an emergent characteristic of an empire-sized polity. A structural flaw that always undermines attempts at democracy.

 

[Ajidica]

Some good examples of liberal dictatorships are current Singapore, early Mussolini, Chile under Pinochet, Germany under the Kaiser.

Let's not leave out the quixotic love of European communists, Yugoslavia.

 

[Zkribbler]

Illiberal democracy all the way baby.

Some good examples of liberal dictatorships are .. Chile under Pinochet,

He ordered a lot of people shot.