Despotism

[Queen of Swords]

I got into an email discussion with my brother over this, since we were talking about the computer game Civilization and the different types of government, most of which we were too young to understand at the time. We just stuck with the default one, despotism, and my brother said that it didn't allow the population to flourish. I was wondering :

1. If this was also true in real-life situations.
2. If there was any way one could have despotism and a steadily growing population where rebellions didn't constantly arise.

3. My brother also believes that some form of democracy is inevitable. I'd like to know what people think about that.

I then brought up the idea of benevolent/enlightened despotism, which I'd first encountered in Isaac Asimov's Second Foundation - or was it Foundation's Edge? - anyway, it's the book featuring the Mule, who eventually becomes an enlightened despot.

4. What would this kind of despot be like, and does anyone think it sounds realistic?

I'm not very savvy regarding history or politics, which is why I didn't post this in the Political Discussions forum. Not that I wouldn't welcome more knowledge on the subject. :)

Thank you, everyone!

Edited to add : The reason I'm interested is that I have created different systems of government : rule by the few elected and rule by people chosen under a religious order being two of them, but I have never had anything resembling a despotism, interestingly. I created one land which had a system of monarchy, but in the backstory, I killed the royalty off and decided that a more egalitarian system would develop.

Now it's one thing to look at that pattern and think, "Oh, I did this because I personally like to have a say in how the country's run and I know how hard it can be under a religious order and a rulership of one". It's another thing to wonder if no other situation is even possible in the long run.

[ February 12, 2002: Message edited by: QueenofSwords ]</p>

[David Gould]

I think that all rulers, unless they have super powers like those of the Mule, have to have some form of consent to rule by those ruled.

For example, if the military chose not to obey the orders of the general, he could not be the ruler.

Now, consent can of course be manufactured to some degree by hiding, distorting and distributing different information to different groups of those ruled.

As to whether more egalitarian rule is inevitable, I think that this could be true. I do not know however whether this is necessarily better.

More complex societies seem to demand more education of more of their citizens in order for those citizens to be useful. (I am not saying that education generally is high; just that in complex technological societies on average people know more than in non-technological societies and that a significant portion of the population - say 10% - need a high level of education).

Knowledge equals power. Someone who knows how to use a computer can access a lot of knowledge. (and a lot of crap but let's set that aside for the moment).

If a high level of education became universal (for example, if menial jobs were taken over completely by robots so people had to undertake a higher level of education to be useful to society) and if change was rapid (thus requiring people to increase their knowledge all the time) and if people lived for a long time (allowing a lot of knowledge accumulation) then society would become inevitably more democratic.

And I think that complex technological societies are also inevitable and have the above consequences.

[Pitshade]

There are some things that are important to remember about dictatorships. One is that power corrupts. That doesn't mean that your benevolent despot will end up trying to marry his horse. S/he will no longer be bound by normal 'moral' restraints, as there is no higher authority to fear.

Necessity will be used to justify any act if the need is great enough. Over time, questionable methods that were introduced to deal with crises end up being used on a daily basis. For instance, due process might initially be circumvented to fight terrorism, but eventually is eliminated for all suspects, regardless of the crime they are accused of.

Dictators also are stuck with the choice of when to delegate authority. Spreading your authority to thinly is a sure route to losing it. While making all the decisions yourself protects the seat of your power it is an extremely inefficient way to govern. One of the reasons that Hitler’s invasion of the USSR (Operation Barbarosa) failed, is Hitler’s insistence on running the show from Berlin, and issuing inflexible and often insane orders. Paranoia seems to be a natural affliction of autocrats as well, though this may be more related to the personality traits that brought them to power than anything that occurs during their rule.

Another thing to remember is that a dictator must satisfy the needs of his/her subjects. The bread and circuses of Imperial Rome served a purpose: to keep the people happy. When people are hungry, their loyalty is to their stomachs and they will follow whomever they think will fill them. Dictators often use scapegoats to justify the need for their absolute power. By doing so, they hope to brand dissenters as traitors and cause the populace to accept rationing as being necessary for the war effort. If the war goes badly however, food shortages can topple any ruler as his/her popularity erodes.

[elwoodblues]

"I then brought up the idea of benevolent/enlightened despotism, which I'd first encountered in Isaac Asimov's Second Foundation - or was it Foundation's Edge? - anyway, it's the book featuring the Mule, who eventually becomes an enlightened despot."

I read that, too, a long time ago. Thought it was fascinating as hell, though I think I was ten at the time. I think it was Foundation's Edge, I'm not sure, though.

[Bookman]

The character of the Mule appears in Second Foundation, the middle book of the original Foundation Trilogy.

Bookman

[nerv111]

Even if a person who would truly be a model of an enlightened despot was in power (and there are a few historical examples), it cannot be insured that their successors will act accordingly. So IMO the problem would be determining a successor who would also be an enlightened despot, this is no easy task.

[nerv111]

Oh, and one more thing… IMO though democracy can be implemented on even a planetary level, I do not believe that it could work on an interplanetary scale or anything larger. To rule such territory it would be necessary to have a strong central government, one that can only be provided through absolute rule (weather by an autocrat, or council, etc.).

[Beelzebub]

I find myself in agreement with Nerv. The best real world example I can thinkl of is Queen Christina of Sweden. Wish I had time for a search, but to my recollection, she followed Gustavus Augustus, who was a very warlike despot who ended up getting killed in the 30 yr War in Germany. Sweden had been up to it's neck in various wars until she gained the throne. Then, she turned Sweden into a basically neutral country and set it's course for the modern Sweden that we recognize. Ballsy lady, one who gets a lot of my respect.

[Lex Talionis]

I'd suggest reading a book or two about the Weimar Republic -- Germany's government between 1918 (or 1919, depending on whether you count its declaration or constitution as the formative action) to 1933 (when Hitler canceled the constitution). Imo, excellent reading for anyone interested in government in general, or pathological government in particular.

Weimar is a great example of authoritarian government and democracy intertwined, and the effect the two have on each other. This period also sees the rise of a fully despotic government in Germany.

Briefly, you have a society which goes from the poorest in Europe to the most powerful on the continent under an authoritarian regime. The authoritarian regime ends, and is replaced with a weak democratic system. The democratic system proves to move slowly and is ineffective at solving many problems the new nation has, and the people start electing authoritarians. And, well, the end result is pretty well known...

[ohwilleke]

Despotism certainly pre-dates democracy. Indeed, the form of depositism known as monarchy has lasted for longer historical periods than most other forms of government. There are monarchies which have lasted for hundreds of years in a single regime.

The oldest continuous regimes of something even vaguely democratic are the U.S. (a regime a little more than 226 years old in the North, and 137 years old in the South), the U.K. (which made a gradual transition from democracy to monarchy, and but which has had a continuous regime since the 1600s, even if it wasn't legitimately a true democracy until after the U.S. declared independence), and Iceland (probably the oldest democracy on Earth, but never more than a village-state).

Sometimes stability, and some measure of law and order (without that you have anarchy rather than depositism) are better than the alternatives. Cuba probably has better health care, education, and baseball after decades of one ruler than it would if it has gone through a succession of coups and corrupt civil governments like its neighbors. Kenya, under several decades of stable on party depostism, probably faired better than neighboring Rwanda which experienced decades of mass slaughter under alternating democratic tyrannies of the majority, and less democratic tryranies of the minority. Singapore's effectively despotic government has much to recommend it in terms of prosperity and a decent quality of life over its much more democratic neighbor Malaysia.

The trouble with despotism, of course, is that there is no guaranteed and no way of guaranteeing that the despot has his heart in the right place. If a Hitler, or a Stalin, or a Pol Pot, or a Mao orders mass murder, there is precious little that can be done to stop it, short of full blown international war to displace the regime. If a King David wants to bed your wife and send you to certain death on the front lines to get you out of the way, there is nothing but his own guilt to stop him. If the King of Brunei wants to deceive women so that the become harem girls and then abuse them, no one can stop him.

And, depositism and monarchy make matters which have nothing to do with good government very important in setting policy. North Korea's current ex-playboy leader is there simply because of blood ties (unlike the ex-playboy leader of the United States with blood ties to a previous leader who also had 49%+ minority of the U.S. voters and a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court to back him up). Nepal's monarchy dissolved to distant relatives in a blood bath when a young man's marriage prospects became a matter of state. Cuba's policy further has a lot to do with one man's good or bad health.

Democracy can be less stable, and this can be a fatal flaw, but democracy also does not tolerate sustained, unpopular, misrule. Any system that allows a concerted popular majority to unseat a leader who is really screwing up (the near elected king system in England), can avoid the main problem of despotism.

[Queen of Swords]

Originally posted by Lex Talionis:
The democratic system proves to move slowly and is ineffective at solving many problems the new nation has

What problems do you see a democratic system having that a despotism/authoritarian regime doesn't have? Would this be accurate : a despot might be able to put down rebellions by sheer military strength, whereas a democracy might be more seriously affected since it has to take the needs of the rebelling people into account?

[Lex Talionis]

Originally posted by QueenofSwords:
<strong>

What problems do you see a democratic system having that a despotism/authoritarian regime doesn't have? Would this be accurate : a despot might be able to put down rebellions by sheer military strength, whereas a democracy might be more seriously affected since it has to take the needs of the rebelling people into account?</strong>

Well, to put it back in Civ terms, you can declare war regardless of what the senate thinks :D

Seriously, though, a despotic government has the potential for more effecient governing (although Nazi Germany is a poor example of this; the "fuehrer principle" under which the Nazi bureaucracy operated simply failed to work and generated anamolies like the chancellory mail supervisor being one of the more powerful officials in the whole regime) and the ability to make decisions quickly in any situation. A despotism doesn't gridlock when representatives disagree on a law.

A despot also has the advantage of not having to worry about getting re-elected, and as such has the capability to enact austerity programs without being kicked out of government in 1, 2 or 4 years.

In a sentence: A despotism has advantages in speed of decision making and stable long-term planning over democratic governments.

[Queen of Swords]

Thanks for your answer, Lex Talionis; I have one more question :

What's the difference between a democracy and a republic? (something else I wondered about when playing Civilization)

[Lex Talionis]

Originally posted by QueenofSwords:
<strong>Thanks for your answer, Lex Talionis; I have one more question :

What's the difference between a democracy and a republic? (something else I wondered about when playing Civilization)</strong>

Well, based on when you get Democracy in the Civ games, I always assumed that it just represented the movement to a modern constitution-based democratic system more than anything else.

I can't really think of any extant democratic government that isn't republican in nature. Even Iceland with its millenium-plus history of democratic rule (or at least democratic home rule - they haven't been sovereign all of that time) has always been run by a republic.

[Euromutt]

Just throwing in my example of a "benevolent despot" - Sultan Qaboos ibn Said of Oman; the man ousted his father with British support in the early 70s, and finally put the oil revenues to good use - roads, hospitals, a university, etc.
He used to spend much of the year on "meet the people" tours, going from village to village and talking with the elders about what their village needed from central government, etc.
But Qaboos mistrusts his heir (his nephew, I believe - Qaboos has no issue, mainly on account of being... well, I would never say the ruler of an Arab country was gay, and I'm emphatically not saying it here) to not go power-mad and instituted a <a href="http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/law/mu__indx.html" target="_blank">constitution</a> in 1996. Benign despotism lasts one generation, apparently.

[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: Euromutt ]</p>

[Pitshade]

Originally posted by QueenofSwords:
<strong>What's the difference between a democracy and a republic? (something else I wondered about when playing Civilization)</strong>Democracy is rule directly by the people, presumably through voting. In a republic, leaders are chosen to represent the people. The US is supposed to be a democratic Republic, meaning that the people choose their own leaders. In a true democracy, we wouldn't have a legistative branch. The executive branch would exist only to carry out the people's will and wouldn't set policy.

[Euromutt]

I don't think so, Pitshade; remember that in Civ, "republic" also covers the Roman Republic, as well as various Renaissance Italian republics, and the Dutch. We're looking at a senate which only represents the patricians, and caters to the plebs ( "plebs" is singular, dammit; there is no such thing as "a pleb" ) with "bread and circuses" (that's yuor "luxuries rating" - more Elvis impersonators!). "Democracy" in the Civ sense covers a system of representative democracy ("polyarchy") with more or less universal suffrage.
I think.

[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: Euromutt ]</p>

[Queen of Swords]

Originally posted by Pitshade:
In a true democracy, we wouldn't have a legistative branch. The executive branch would exist only to carry out the people's will and wouldn't set policy.

What happens if the will of one part of the population clashes with that of another part?

[Pitshade]

Originally posted by Euromutt:
<strong>I don't think so, Pitshade; remember that in Civ, "republic" also covers the Roman Republic, as well as various Renaissance Italian republics, and the Dutch. We're looking at a senate which only represents the patricians, and caters to the plebs ( "plebs" is singular, dammit; there is no such thing as "a pleb" ) with "bread and circuses" (that's yuor "luxuries rating" - more Elvis impersonators!). "Democracy" in the Civ sense covers a system of representative democracy ("polyarchy") with more or less universal suffrage.
I think.

[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: Euromutt ]</strong>

I'm not sure what you are referring to here. I realize that QoS referred to the game Civilization in the OP, but I'm talking about real world political structures. A republic is a system where citizens exercise political power through their representatives. It doesn’t mean universal suffrage, though it is expected in the case of a 'democratic republic.' This is the thing to remember, the western 'democracies' are really democratic republics, but not all republics have to function like that. Only the patrician class was allowed to vote in republican Rome, as you said.

[Pitshade]

Originally posted by QueenofSwords:
<strong>What happens if the will of one part of the population clashes with that of another part?</strong>
Assuming that a vote has been taken and the losing side refuses to concede; then secession, civil war or both would be the only courses of action. Essentially it would be the same situation as the American Civil War, where the South refused to accept the election of Lincoln as president and ‘dissolved the Union’.

[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: Pitshade ]</p>

[Euromutt]

Whoops, hold on - I just meant the Civ forms of government. I think that in Civ terminology, the present-day US counts as a "democracy" even though in political science terms it's a "federative representational democratic republic" while, say, the Netherlands or Denmark (also "democracies" by Civ standards) are "constitutional representational democratic monarchies".
When you get right down to it, "republic" and "democracy" are not mutually exclusive - there are despotic republics and democratic republics (Robert Mugabe is trying to turn Zimbabwe from the latter to the former, for example); these days, the rule of thumb is "if the head of state is called a president, it's a republic." If we look at the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", however, we see something more akin to a dynastic monarchy than a Civ-style republic. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia have displayed characteristics of Civ II "fundamentalist" systems, though they are a republic and a monarchy, respectively.

Edited to fix adjectives.

[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: Euromutt ]</p>

[Celsus]

Just to add to what ohwilleke said above,

Lee Kuan Yew, former PM of Singapore once said something along the lines of "democracy is inimical to development". His philosophy is very much of a caring patrimonial government. This is not quite "despotism" in an absolute sense, and furthermore, civil liberties can be freer or more restricted in various aspects.

Obviously the "caring father" model he likes depends heavily on what the government actually represents. The East Asian economies have all relied heavily on state intervention with long-lasting rulers (or dominance by a single party) who were able to oversee the development of their countries. Basically, they've played the sort of illusion Civ players do when they become democratic in the Civ sense (you are still in control :) ). Singapore did start off with quite a socialist interventionist state focusing on export promotion, but history seems to have been rewritten into make it a model of free markets. In fact, the government is still very heavily involved with economic stimulus mechanisms, and since its a small state, these can be quite effective.

[Lex Talionis]

Originally posted by Euromutt:
<strong>Whoops, hold on - I just meant the Civ forms of government. I think that in Civ terminology, the present-day US counts as a "democracy" even though in political science terms it's a "federative representational democratic republic" while, say, the Netherlands or Denmark (also "democracies" by Civ standards) are "constitutional representational democratic monarchies".
When you get right down to it, "republic" and "democracy" are not mutually exclusive - there are despotic republics and democratic republics (Robert Mugabe is trying to turn Zimbabwe from the latter to the former, for example); these days, the rule of thumb is "if the head of state is called a president, it's a republic." If we look at the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", however, we see something more akin to a dynastic monarchy than a Civ-style republic. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia have displayed characteristics of Civ II "fundamentalist" systems, though they are a republic and a monarchy, respectively.
</strong>

There's a lot to be said for the draw of legitimacy. Iraq, for example, calls itself a republic and has elections -- of course, there's only one person running for president, and I doubt an opposition candidate would survive recieving a vote. Iran, as I understand it, is more of a monarchy than a republic: the parliament and president can only function with the consent of the ayatollah, and the ayatollah appoints all of the judiciary (which can arrest MPs essentially at will). It's not a Civ republic/democracy if the leader can overrule the senate when he wants to declare war :D

If the Civ governments apply to history, it'd be something like this:

Despotism: Early empires and monarchies controlled by a leader with military loyalty. Examples: Akkad, Alexander's empire and (especially) its successor states.

Monarchy: Kingdoms after the "divine right of kings" ruled by a leader who has a non-military claim to leadership and is generally expected to actually benefit the country (whether these expectations and the DRK have any basis in reality is, of course, questionable).
Examples: France, England, Spain, Egypt during their monarchies.

Republic: Early systems of rule by compromise of a ruling class, either aristocracy or oligarchy.
Examples: Rome (during the Republic, and, arguably, the Empire), various Renaissance Italian city-states.

Democracy: Modern constitutional republics based on broad suffrage.
Examples: USA, modern Europe.

Of course... Civ is, above all, meant to be playable, so most of the game concepts are geared around providing an interesting game which rewards technological advance, so any direct application of the governing types to reality is specious at best (of course, this didn't prevent me from directly applying them to reality, but hey)

[ohwilleke]

Originally posted by Euromutt:
<strong>Benign despotism lasts one generation, apparently. </strong>

Hmmm.... not sure I quite agree. First, despotism gets reclassified as a monarchy when it last more than one generation, so that it isn't truly despotism at that point.

Second, I'm not sure that successive generations of monarchies get worse. In the Middle East, the pattern we've seen is a tyranically first generation (like the Wahibite first monarch of Saudi Arabia), followed by Western educated moderating children. A benign despot can put a responsible heir on the throne, and probably often does. The trouble is, that you can't keep it up forever. Eventually someone in line is going to be bad and there is prescious little you can do to stop him (some of the last and most decedent French monarchs come to mind here).

[Queen of Swords]

Lex Talionis : that last post was very helpful. Clarifies a lot of things for me. Just one more question : where would a ruling triumvirate fall in those classes that you delineated?

[Lex Talionis]

Originally posted by QueenofSwords:
<strong>Lex Talionis : that last post was very helpful. Clarifies a lot of things for me. Just one more question : where would a ruling triumvirate fall in those classes that you delineated?</strong>

Well, it depends. If one of the triumvirs killed the other two, what happens then? If he is then in absolute control, it's a despotism. If the other two get replaced by appointed members of a ruling class or by other individuals based on power and/or holdings, you have (more or less) an ancient republic (based on aristocracy on the former and oligarchy on the latter).

The Triumverates in Roman history came about not as any system of ideal government, but because in both cases there was something of a balance between three (essentially despotic) leaders. Both triumverates ended with one triumvir assuming absolute (or near absolute) power after the defeat of the other two triumvirs. I should point out that of the four defeated triumvirs, as I recall only one of them died of natural causes...

[Queen of Swords]

A lot of violence seems to be bound up in a despotism. Perhaps that's why more democratic forms of government are associated with peacetimes; once they aren't distracted and terrified by war, the people want to have a say.

[Gurdur]

@ Queen Of Swords:

Quite right about the violent point.

However, in relations between different states, violence can easily arise between democracies - extreme violence in some cases.

Case in point: Milosevic was voted into power in Serbia with an explicit program of armament, redentism and territorial enlargement; as one Serbian woman who I heard said, "He gave us the choice between butter and glory, and naturally we wanted the glory".

Culture affects a lot, even in democracies; see for examples the differences between Sweden and the USA, between France and Germany, between New Zealand and Norway.

There's a new book coming out next year that explores the idea that current trends in the USA support and promote the acceptance and growth of sociopathy - that is, the lack of a conscience.

There's an excellent book which explores the parallels between the USA and ancient Athens, and the question how can a democracy behave ruthlessly and disgustingly abroad against other states:

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691001030/qid=1013787863/sr=12-3/103-5947974-5670219" target="_blank">The Honey And The Hemlock</a>
by Eli Sagan

IOW, in any mix of cultures, even with them all being democracies, there's still room for great diversity, and the potential for great conflict.

[ February 15, 2002: Message edited by: Gurdur ]</p>

[ohwilleke]

Certainly despotic governments can differ greatly in their policies as well. Some are law abiding, orderly, and provide citizens with a great deal of personal freedom. Others are just sort of 1984 style police states. Naturally, you have to be a fairly popular despot to survive in the former case.

I'm not sure that democracy is inevitable either, and I'm pretty comfortable saying that population growth itself was not an important cause of it. I'm inclined to think that democracy came about because economic and technological circumstances were changing so quickly that traditional laws weren't keeping up with the needs of the times and that monarchs weren't responding quickly enough. (Something that we've seen in recent history happen to several democratically and non-democratically appointed Latin American leaders).
Democracy is ultimately a way to bring out regime changes fairly easily, and are necessary when it is necessary to change laws. In a stable society, where new laws are not needed because the necessary laws have been ironed out and there is no need for further adaptation at a rapid pace, depotism can work well . . . as they did for centuries in much of the world (China comes to mind as a particularly successful example for centuries).

Similarly, a reformist despot may oust any other government when it is incapable of responding quickly enough (which happened when China and Russia or France).