a benign dictator would be far more efficient than any democracy.

yes, in theory. that's one of the core arguments of the approach.

let's not lose track of what we're debating here though. i'm not contesting that the thought experiment has its merits and addresses some of the core issues of governance, i'm just refuting the absurd claim that it's "generally accepted" as the ideal form of government. that isn't even true for political philosophy, let alone for real life...

political philosophy is funny to me, because they'd never even dare touch the idea of a benign dictator in a positive light because of the word dictator and the general consensus that more democracy is better that permeates the field. and yet they're also happy to dream up ideal worlds in which far left communism and socialism work fine. and no not hybrid real world Scandinavian models, but the real deal Holyfield.

i generally laugh at the whole higher education is tainted by leftist ideas narrative, but this is a niche example that i think applies well.

IF a dictator acted in the interest of the people that would be the best, period. we use democracy because dictators never remain benign in the long run. absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Mar 11 2022 03:31pm

well said

i think what you describe comes from a lack of history knowledge, because the old roman concept of a dictator was a man, who would be granted full (but still somewhat controlled) authority to act quickly in an emergency

and when his time was up or the problem solved he would step down to let the republic roll again

This post was edited by JohnnyMcCoy on Mar 11 2022 03:53pm

well, that's just an opinion with efficiency as the sole determining factor of "good" rule though, completely neglecting questions of legitimacy for example. you might dismiss them as purely academic given our presumption of a "good" outcome, thanks to the benevolence of the ruler, but we are already in a purely hypothetical scenario anyway, so we might as well address such aspects.

to be clear, i'm not saying you're not entitled to it, i'm just saying what you're stating like a fact simply isn't one.

btw, your characterisation of political philosophy as a field is hilariously simplistic and deeply influenced by partisan narratives. it isn't remotely as monolithic as you're portraying it as - not even if you only consider exclusively that of 'western style democracies' (already a massive generalisation), which is a flawed and biased approach to begin with.
are you, by any chance, extrapolating from your personal experiences with general academia, assuming that its "lefty" bias (particularly by the incredibly skewed american standards) directly translates into fields that actually specialise in political theory, philosophy, and science? just trying to understand where you're coming from, not suggesting it's entirely unreasonable to get this impression.

This war is only happening because Putin wants to date AOC

obviously, just saying how retarded their lies are.

and lavrov, foreign russian minister, said russia did not attack ukraine :)))

Probably he said that we don't have a war since they call it special operation.

Putin wants to clap the druglords that are running around in Ukraine.
He wants all their loot he don't give a fk about Ukraine joining eu/nato

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03/11/world/ukraine-russia-news

"Russia warned the United States that convoys with weapons sent to Ukraine would be “legitimate targets” for the Russian military. The deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said on Russian television that Moscow had warned Washington that the “thoughtless transfer of such types of weapons as portable anti-aircraft and anti-tank missile systems” to Ukraine could lead to serious consequences."