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posted by martyb on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the making-sausage dept.

Authoritarian leaders are seen as far more trustworthy than politicians in more openly democratic countries across the emerging world, according to data compiled by the World Economic Forum.

Leaders in Singapore, the Gulf states and Rwanda are rated as having the highest ethical standards in the emerging markets, closely followed by their Chinese and central Asian counterparts.

In contrast, politicians in democracies such as Brazil, Paraguay, Nigeria, Mexico and Romania are seen as exhibiting the lowest ethical standards.

Overall, among the 20 emerging market countries rated as having the most trustworthy politicians in the 2016 survey, 13 are rated as "not free" by Freedom House, a US government-funded non-governmental organisation, with three classed as partly free and just four classed as free.

Among the 20 emerging markets whose politicians are seen as having the lowest ethical standards, not one is classed by Freedom House as not free, with six free and 14 partly free.

https://www.ft.com/content/79d1ce36-8ca9-11e6-8aa5-f79f5696c731

Might be paywalled, but I got in using my normal combination of noscript, self-destructing cookies, and referrer spoofing (from google.com).

Text without charts: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/world/2016/10/1823541-polls-show-low-approval-of-the-ethical-standards-of-leaders-in-latin-america.shtml


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday October 19 2016, @02:46PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 19 2016, @02:46PM (#416154) Journal
    Before you discount democracy, you need to find something better first. Dictatorships are great, amazing even, if you're in charge, deciding who lives and dies, but they are hellholes for everyone else. In the US, you're free to be a neoreactionary even if almost no one listens to you. It's a vastly better situation. I think it's ridiculous that people discount democracies merely because they are imperfect especially on such pathetic grounds as you give.

    Here if you offend Hillary Clinton you won't be killed, you'll just never work anywhere in journalism, or possibly anywhere else, again, will have to live in a homeless shelter until you die in violent street crime and your wife will divorce you and your daughter will have to turn to prostitution to get food to live until she gets addicted to and dies of meth.

    Actually, there's a lot of Clinton detractors who will see a boost in their careers as a result. This supposed punishment is purely imaginary.

    In a dictatorship they just humanely shoot you and get it over without any torture.

    Unless, of course, someone in power decides they want to torture you, which from history is a rather common thing. Pulling off your above list of punishments is trivial for a dictatorship to do.

    Why do you think hypocrisy is worse than than evil that doesn't have to hide? The hypocrite is far easier to influence. You can after all blackmail them with evidence of their hypocrisy which just doesn't work for strongmen who control an effective propaganda apparatus.

    Finally, I'll note that this is not purely hypothetical. We actually have cases where the neoreactionaries took charge such as Vichy France or Imperial Rome. While the results aren't uniformly disastrous, they have contributed to the long term harm and decline of the societies in question. Vichy France is particularly instructive. Back in the 1930s, both the far left and far right decided that democracy wasn't going to work and they set about on their own terms to take over ineffectually. But it wasn't till the Nazis took over the country in an embarrassingly easy fight that the far right, the neoreactionaries of their time, got into power as puppets of the Nazis. The far left found out the hard way what happens when they partly get their wish of overturning a weak democracy, but they don't get to be in charge. And when Nazi Germany was completely destroyed, the far right ended up repudiated to the present day.

    This is why IMHO Europe is so left oriented compared to anywhere else other than some of the former communist countries. Vicious betrayal is a great way to permanently undermine a cause and the far right in way too many countries sided with a brutal invader.

    Since I mentioned Imperial Rome, it shows even in the absence of seedy betrayal that the benefits of overturning any sort of democracy (the Roman Republic was definitely more democratic than what followed) are short-lived. Competent, long lived emperors were ok and the empire did reach its greatest extent under them. But there are several things to notice. First, there was a virtual halt to intellectual development. Engineering continued, but there's a long period of no development in the sciences or arts, outside of a few monument building related arts like architecture or sculpture.

    Second, legendarily incompetent rulers showed up rather quickly with emperors Caligula and Nero in particular making a profound negative impact, but also such embarrassments as the The Year of the Four Emperors [wikipedia.org]. And after the death of Hadrian in 138 AD, the whole empire started a long, slow slide to dissolution. And when the Roman empire collapsed, it collapsed completely leaving little trace anywhere it had been.

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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday October 19 2016, @06:32PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @06:32PM (#416273)

    Before you discount democracy, you need to find something better first. Dictatorships are great, amazing even, if you're in charge, deciding who lives and dies, but they are hellholes for everyone else.

    This is simply not true. There have been many dictatorships and authoritarian regimes in history which have been ranked as excellent for their citizens. Marcus Aurelius of Rome was one, Elizabeth I of England was another: these rulers were considered by historians to be excellent rulers who made things better for their people. There's many, many more too.

    Dictatorships like this are demonstrably better than democracies. They don't have the problems with corruption, nor the problems with bureaucracy nor political infighting that characterize democracies. When you have one leader with a singular vision and everyone having to follow his rule, things are simply much more efficient. Democracies are extremely inefficient, by design. They cannot compete.

    Most people with any knowledge of history acknowledge benevolent dictatorships as the very best forms of government. We see this too today with private companies, open-source projects, etc: authoritarian rule leads to much more efficient results (or it leads to abject failure if the leaders suck, but then their competitors win and we forget about them).

    The real problem with authoritarian regimes is: what happens when the good dictator dies? Usually, they seem to get succeeded by a shitty heir and everything goes down the toilet. Democracies seek to avoid this kind of instability (where the health of the nation is dependent on the health of a single ruler) by spreading the power out and giving the people the power to choose the leadership to an extent so that one really horrible leader like Caligula or Commodus doesn't inherit the throne and wreak havoc. (In real life, unlike the movie, Commodus was so awful that he was assassinated in his bathtub by his guards.)

    But this doesn't prevent people in democracies from making awful choices. We've seen it in the middle east recently, such as with Egyptians electing the Muslim Brotherhood after they overthrew their dictator Mubarak. And we're seeing it right now in the US with two horrible candidates, both severely disliked by the majority of the population (though this could lead to an argument about how much of a "democracy" it really is when the election system allows this kind of result). In fact, democracies' major problem seems to be that they can easily lead to a "tyranny of the majority", wherein minority groups are oppressed because they don't have enough votes.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:02PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:02PM (#416314) Journal

      This is simply not true. There have been many dictatorships and authoritarian regimes in history which have been ranked as excellent for their citizens. Marcus Aurelius of Rome was one, Elizabeth I of England was another: these rulers were considered by historians to be excellent rulers who made things better for their people. There's many, many more too.

      Their successors didn't stay that way as you note below. And they had their victims too. Catholics for Elizabeth I's reign and Germanic tribes for Marcus Aurelius's reign.

      Most people with any knowledge of history acknowledge benevolent dictatorships as the very best forms of government. We see this too today with private companies, open-source projects, etc: authoritarian rule leads to much more efficient results (or it leads to abject failure if the leaders suck, but then their competitors win and we forget about them).

      Notice that it is simple to move to a different company with different policies. And the feedbacks of profit and worker flight provide a ready way to temper the abuses of authoritarian rule.

      Dictatorships like this are demonstrably better than democracies. They don't have the problems with corruption, nor the problems with bureaucracy nor political infighting that characterize democracies. When you have one leader with a singular vision and everyone having to follow his rule, things are simply much more efficient. Democracies are extremely inefficient, by design. They cannot compete.

      Actually, the very regimes you mention did have these problems with corruption, bureaucracy, and political infighting. A considerable portion of Elizabeth's early reign was consumed dealing with a Catholic insurgency and a rival queen. Marcus Aurelius's empire already had a massive bureaucracy which would haunt the empire for centuries to come. And as you note in democracies, we can have the advantages of authoritarian rule without a good portion of their disadvantages via businesses. Democracies have on several occasions outperformed authoritarian governments (such as Athens versus Sparta or the US versus the USSR).

      The real problem with authoritarian regimes is: what happens when the good dictator dies? Usually, they seem to get succeeded by a shitty heir and everything goes down the toilet. Democracies seek to avoid this kind of instability (where the health of the nation is dependent on the health of a single ruler) by spreading the power out and giving the people the power to choose the leadership to an extent so that one really horrible leader like Caligula or Commodus doesn't inherit the throne and wreak havoc. (In real life, unlike the movie, Commodus was so awful that he was assassinated in his bathtub by his guards.)

      I see you anticipated me there. And that's a real problem. A competent, beneficial ruler is great. An incompetent, malicious ruler is terrible. And two or three incompetent, malicious rulers vying for power in the midst of a bloody civil war is a disaster. Another problem here is that authoritarian governments have a somewhat greater tendency to create followers not leaders.

      But this doesn't prevent people in democracies from making awful choices. We've seen it in the middle east recently, such as with Egyptians electing the Muslim Brotherhood after they overthrew their dictator Mubarak. And we're seeing it right now in the US with two horrible candidates, both severely disliked by the majority of the population (though this could lead to an argument about how much of a "democracy" it really is when the election system allows this kind of result). In fact, democracies' major problem seems to be that they can easily lead to a "tyranny of the majority", wherein minority groups are oppressed because they don't have enough votes.

      Rights can be useful in any government, but they seem baked into democracies.

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday October 19 2016, @09:34PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @09:34PM (#416355)

        Catholics for Elizabeth I's reign and Germanic tribes for Marcus Aurelius's reign.

        I clearly stated before that authoritarian rule can be better for their citizens. The Germanic tribes were not citizens, and you not that for Elizabeth, the Catholics were involved in an insurgency and supporting a rival ruler, so I don't see how my statement is invalid there. Even the best ruler has to use force to exert their power when some segment of the population rebels.

        And as you note in democracies, we can have the advantages of authoritarian rule without a good portion of their disadvantages via businesses.

        Businesses only control things within their own sphere, and do not control things like social policy and overall government spending. We wouldn't have a military defense at all if it were up to businesses, because it would be seen as a cost center and not useful for quarterly profits. Same goes for roads to get to and from work.

        Democracies have on several occasions outperformed authoritarian governments (such as Athens versus Sparta or the US versus the USSR).

        I never said all authoritarian governments were great or superior. The USSR was a poster child of horrible government and why command economies don't work. (An authoritarian government doesn't necessitate a command economy, that was something unique to "communist" states in the 20th century.) Ancient Rome did just fine for centuries with a free-market economy and emperors. Of course, it did eventually collapse, but it also lasted a lot longer than any modern democratic government has. No one's come up with a form of government that doesn't collapse yet; they all have at some point.

        Rights can be useful in any government, but they seem baked into democracies.

        In western ones, sure. But they didn't have that in Egypt, and they had to have a military coup to get rid of the Muslim Brotherhood that the people elected. The military government doesn't seem to be very good either, but it doesn't seem any worse than the democratic Islamist government that it overthrew either.

        A competent, beneficial ruler is great. An incompetent, malicious ruler is terrible.

        Yep, that's the problem with such governments: they're life-limited because the competent, beneficial ruler doesn't live forever. However, I can't point to very many democratic governments that have lasted all that long either without plunging into a nasty civil war or being overthrown. The US is probably the second longest-lived one, at about 155 years since its civil war. Switzerland is probably the longest-lived one, though it's also a very small country, smaller than many cities here in the US population-wise.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 19 2016, @10:01PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 19 2016, @10:01PM (#416376) Journal

          I clearly stated before that authoritarian rule can be better for their citizens.

          Ok, I guess so. But it tends to be rather easy to lose citizenship status in an authoritarian government. For example, there were way too many proscription lists bandied about (death if captured and seizure of property being a usual consequence, if you were on the list) during the transition from Roman Republic to Roman Empire and later.

        • (Score: 2) by dry on Thursday October 20 2016, @02:25AM

          by dry (223) on Thursday October 20 2016, @02:25AM (#416440) Journal

          The oldest democratic republic is San Marino, founded in 301, with its current constitution dating to 1600 (an update from the one from circa 1300). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marino#History [wikipedia.org]. Though it is small.
          Whether America is a democracy is questionable, especially this cycle where the powers that be have presented a green runny turd and a brown runny turd and Americans seem to really believe those are the choices and are willing to fight for their turd. I'd think in a democracy, the people would vote for anything but a turd.