The next best thing after a president who has a long term vision for its country is a dictator who has a long term vision for his country. Sadly in the west we don't really have any of the former, and the wannabe dictators we get are even more self absorbed and only interested in the next election cycle
Yep, it has nothing to do with being the world leader in money laundering and a tax have lmao. This part of their wiki article is gold:
> The country ranks as one of the least corrupt countries in the world, while its banking sector is rated as "one of the most corrupt in the world"
It's like saying Norway is prosperous because they eat a lot of fish, no, they're prosperous because they sit on a shit ton of oil. The Swiss case is much more complex than "direct democracy"
There's no such thing as a country, if we remove the population from the country.
Dictators' long-term visions for their countries rarely include population's prosperity as a key goal. Benevolent (near-)absolute monarchs existed, but they were even more rare than democratically elected great leaders.
Say, Mr. Putin looked like a benevolent not-even-a-dictator for a decade or so, and his rule coincided with the rather obviously rising prosperity of most Russian citizens. But there is a catch. Always has been, but it became overt in 2022 when the kinda-benevolent leader turned a complete dictator and started a major war.
Xi is already much more of a dictator than Putin can ever dream of. To hope that his benevolence will extend indefinitely, and will match your idea of benevolence, if to be delusional, sorry.
He tried hard to make an impression. Look, the prosperity grows, "Russia is rising from its knees", or what was the slogan by then. A political assassination here and there? Well, these were the enemies of the prosperity and order. Large demonstrations against his rule? They came, they went, nobody even got shot. "Re-election" for the third, fourth, fifth, whatever next presidential term? Well, everyone just somehow acquiesced to the notion that the "controlled democracy" is a game, the price of the "white glove" dictatorship; who did not, left the country.
It looked sort of "benevolent", even though the rot under the surface was exposed time and again, with murders, multiple attacks on neighboring countries, and eventually a large-scale war in Europe.
Those who think that Chairman Xi is benevolent and is doing good for China with his long-term wise planning may be up for a very rude awakening. They prefer to somehow push away from their picture of China things like people disappearing, businesses crushed, political commissars at every large business, the whole Xinjiang thing, and the battle dances around Taiwan. When they realize that these are integral parts of the "benevolence", and have been all along, it may be a bit late.
“The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those which they... have always held, but which were not properly understood or recognized before... the most efficient technique to this end is to use the old words but change their meaning. Few traits of totalitarian regimes are at the same time so confusing to the superficial observer and yet so characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as the complete perversion of language"
~F.A. Hayek
The irony of quoting Hayek, the collaborator of Pinochet, one of the worst dictators of the last century, to warn about the dangers of totalitarian regimes.
Even more ironic is that "use the old words but change their meaning" is something our "democratic" ruling class keeps doing very often.
Pinochet killed a few thousand people, which is awful but is not, by any objective reckoning, a reign that puts him in the company of the worst dictators of the last century[0][1]
Those who do this in the ruling class always use it to dupe the people into opposing their own interests--hardly ironic.
I disagree, democracy is literally the power of the people. A dictator who serves the people's interests is effectively concretizing that power, as opposed to a corrupt/inept elected official who will deny it.
> The difference is that in a democracy the people can vote out corrupt individuals, at least theoretically.
A system where elected representatives always serve the interests of a select few is essentially an oligarchy in disguise. When the available choices are just two variations of the same corruption, it becomes difficult to view it as a genuine form of power.
> That can’t happen in a dictatorship because, again, the people have no power.
We always have the power, and it's called revolution. Historically, it's how corrupt dictatorships have met their end.
> A system where elected representatives always serve the interests of a select few is essentially an oligarchy in disguise. When the available choices are just two variations of the same corruption, it becomes difficult to view it as a genuine form of power.
This is pretty much describing the US, which is both not a democracy (it’s a republic. And a bad example of one) and not what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about democracy and dictatorships as forms of governance in the abstract.
> We always have the power, and it's called revolution. Historically, it's how corrupt dictatorships have met their end.
Yes and no. A lot of revolutions against dictators have other nations as sponsors.
Also, having the physical power to revolt is not the same as having political power.
Often post revolution, those with previous political power (who were not the dictator) maintain some, all, or even gain power after a revolution.
You’ll never see Joe Schmoe office worker gaining political power through revolution unless they amass support (a.k.a. Political power) beforehand.
Pure democracy is not very good. It's just governance by mob rule (which is bad for the same reason populism is bad)
Which is why republics have been succesful. Ideally me, as an idividual, should be able to trust a local leader enough to have them represent me in government. That way I am free to live my life and trust the local leader to handle politics in my best interests.
It rarely ends up that clean, but it happens sometimes.
