Effective Dictatorships?

[Mr.Mister]

DON'T get me wrong: I'm not expressing love or support for these statists.

Look...I know that Suharto and Pinochet committed numerous war crimes, but...

Do you feel like their rulership over Indonesia and Chile benefitted their nations in the long run?

Think about it; both dictators were preceded by socialist presidents who were running the economy into the ground, and both dictators were more free-market friendly, which lead to massive rises in wealth. Consider the fact that Chile now has the most stable economy in Latin America and a MUCH lower poverty rate than before Pinochet's time, or the fact that significant advancements were made by Indonesia following industrialisation.

In short, did these two dictators do more good than harm?

[MAM]

Think about war.

Rome: The Italian Pennisula is chaotic and there is war between various tribes, until Rome conquers them and imposes order which continues across the then known world.

The we have more chaos after Rome falls.

Then we have the rise of the nation-States. And now the Eurozone, and NATO.  with the Republic of the US and Canada sharing the Norad facility. Essentially a North American military union.

Also intersting to note Rudolf Rummel's work. Democratic Peace Theory, as well as his work with democide etc..

[Liberaltarian]

There are more important things than economics. So I'll say dictators ALWAYS do more harm than good.

[Syock]

There is some assumption in this thread that the economy didn't exist prior to these dictators.  It did exist, it just wasn't centralized and controlled by a government to be counted.  The native Celts of Europe had global trade, which made them so valuable for Rome to invade and steal from.  They were relatively wealthy before they were conquered. 

[macsnafu]

I'll accept it's not impossible for a "beneficial" dictator to do good for a nation.  But the best way for such a dictator to do good is to adopt a hands-off approach and not interfere in the natural workings of the economy.  Most such dictators, like many other statists with good intentions, would rather *do* something that they think is good, rather than merely not interfere.  Just as President Obama thinks he's improving U.S. healthcare with his Obamacare legislation.  They might achieve some small measure of good, but ultimately the harm they do outweighs the good.

People don't generally seek power for altruistic reasons, and if someone basically good ends up in a position of power, the tendency is towards actually using that power, not avoiding its use.