Is a Benign Dictatorship Better Than Western Democracy?

At a party recently a very good friend of mind suggested that a benign dictatorship is a superior form of government to our western democracy. This got me thinking....

Has there ever been a truly benign dictatorship?

Lord Acton's famous phrase 'Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely' springs to mind. It is quite simply a reality of human behaviour that even the most benevolent leaders end up abusing their people when in a position of absolute power.

It is certainly difficult to think of any truly benign dictatorships in the modern world. How about China? According to Amnesty International, human rights abuses are widespread in China. Expect harassment, house arrest, arbitrary detention, torture, even execution, simply for publicly disagreeing with the government. Dictatorship, yes. Benign, certainly not.

Maybe Cuba is better. Don't bet on it. It was only in 2009 that Cubans were for the first time allowed to buy mobile phones and computers for personal use. Access to the Internet remains restricted. It is clear that this type of abuse takes place in the interests of the government and certainly not the people.

Without exception, there is an absence of genuine human rights where the government has absolute power. In Brunei, the Sultan governs with few limits on his power. He controls the security forces, there is arbitrary detention, limits on freedom of speech, and control of media. There is statutory prohibition of challenging in any way the Sultan or members of the royal family. It's easy to dismiss such issues but there would rightly be outrage if anything remotely similar was proposed in Britain or, for that matter, any other genuinely democratic country.

And surely, this is the issue. When making comparisons, you must always compare with a genuine democracy. Many countries pay lip service to democracy but in effect remain dictatorships. Elections of sorts take place in Iran. In 2009 President Ahmadinejad was re-elected but nobody serious considers the vote free and fair. The security forces were implicated in custodial deaths, killings of protestors, torture, beatings and rape. The government continues to administer extremely severe punishments including death by stoning, amputation and flogging.

To be sure, it is simply not possible to design a completely fair electoral system and so to that extent no country has a truly genuine democracy. However, there is no question in my mind that I prefer to live in a country where the key democratic principles are observed and enshrined.

As Winston Churchill once said, 'Democracy is the worse system of government there is - apart from all the others.'