Understanding Dictatorships

From Iran to Cuba, the question of legitimacy is paramount

Jon Basil Utley | September 1, 2009

Recent anti-government demonstrations in Iran have raised our consciousness about the dangers of misunderstanding Third World dictatorships. To most Americans, the word dictator means a Stalin or Hitler—which is the reason our presidents usually accuse new enemies of being new "Hitlers." Contraposing this, the traditional view of most Americans is that citizens support their government and, if a people really opposed their rulers, the citizenry would overthrow them, like we did the British in 1776. From this viewpoint, the bombing and killing of enemy civilians is "morally" justifiable because "they" generally approved of their (evil) government, or otherwise would have rebelled and overthrown it.

Hitler and Stalin are best understood as totalitarian dictators, a 20th century European creation, enabled by modern science and political mobilization. Third World dictatorships are different. Most of them are very weak and don't exercise total control, as evidenced by Iran.

The most common misunderstanding centers on the fact that all governments, even dictatorships, need some form of legitimacy to justify their rule to their own people. Otherwise they must revert to brute force, which is both expensive and corrupting to the police and army, who then abuse their respective powers and cause growing public resentment and anger. But while force and fear are temporarily effective, they are not enough for the longer term. A foreign threat thus helps dictators, as it is used to justify their despotic rule. Economic blockades can actually reinforce dictators' power and indeed even make their cohorts richer as they profit from the consequent smuggling and black markets. In the eyes and minds of the conquered, American soldiers certainly do not have "legitimacy," as we have repeatedly learned.

Understanding Dictatorships

Understanding how such dictatorships actually function would help Washington to avoid more foreign policy disasters. If Americans better understood the weaknesses of most foreign tyrannies, we'd be less inclined to see them as great threats. Also, we would have to face the reality that administering them effectively would mean establishing a permanent corps of occupation forces on the British or Roman model. Even then modern communications and weaponry might make our rule fail. Tribal societies cannot be easily converted into democracies.

In the old days legitimacy came from the divine right of kings or priests who gained their authority from God. In tribal societies, custom and inherited status have played much the same role. Tribes are ruled by a council of elders on the theory that they have the experience, knowledge, and wisdom to make intelligent decisions.

The Roman emperors claimed religious and Senatorial authority. Later they provided a "rule of law" with safety and free trade for their subjects who previously had only known wars, piracy, and civil strife. Remember that Saint Paul could not be tortured by the police because he was a Roman citizen. Yet even the Romans needed to provide bread and circuses (welfare) to the masses in order to maintain support for their legitimacy.

In modern times democracy provides that legitimacy, hence the extreme measures—including fake elections—dictatorships will go to in order to claim the semblance of lawful control. Wartime, however, was always recognized as needing centralized, unrestrained rule. In ancient Greece even democracies, when at war, would elect a dictator for a year at a time on the theory that only a single ruler could act forcefully without delays and second guessing by committees, elders, or legislators.

Tribal Power 

In Iraq we learned belatedly that Saddam Hussein ruled through tribal leaders, in particular by bribing and accommodating them. Intimidation was certainly part of his rule, but not the base of it. Washington's usual war propaganda went all out with stories of his (in particular his sons') torturing the innocent and killing at will. However, in tribal societies, rape and wanton killings bring about vengeance and are not done lightly. Hussein ruled mainly through his own tribe, relying upon them in key positions of power, a method in accordance with tribal traditions.

Nor was it considered "corrupt" to use government power to profit one's family, clan, or tribe. Everybody did it! Look at Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or Afghanistan today. Profiting oneself, one's clan, and one's tribe is a tradition stretching back thousands of years. What America calls "corruption" has been the world's way of life until relatively recently. Saddam Hussein''s original theory of government was Baathist Arab socialism, a form of national socialism or fascism first supported in the Arab world as a way to modernize their nations. But after the First Gulf War in 1991 Hussein reverted to tribal control.

The British, on the other hand, ruled their empire by playing different tribes against each other. They well understood that after generations of war, rape, and pillage most tribes hated their neighbors far more than they hated any foreign enemy. Only in modern times, with the rise of nationalism, did Third World nations finally overthrow European imperialism.

Washington's plans to create democracy and legitimate government for Iraq and Afghanistan in a few years crashes against these traditions. For thousands of years tribal systems have provided for personal and economic security. Such traditions do not change quickly. Clans and tribes provided for widows and orphans (insurance), shared economic scarcity, provided for common defense, and offered vengeance for harm done to their members. (For details see my earlier article "Tribes, Veils and Democracy.") However, tribal societies are also inherently unjust for smaller tribes and thus are usually unstable and unable to bring much economic development.

Rotten to the Core

The weakness of most Third World dictatorships is evidenced by their dysfunction and poverty. In the case of Iran, for example, gasoline costs only 20 cents per gallon, although much is imported and the government is too incompetent to build more refineries. A strong government would not be subsidizing it. The mullahs used to have legitimacy on the basis of religion, traditional values, and nationalism. Now, however, they've lost most of it and depend upon the force of their militia and "Revolutionary Guards." The reward for these enforcers has been the control of many businesses and even the black market. Yet that easy money corrupts them and makes them more abusive. Yet Iran is demonized in America as if it was a competent state—it isn't. And its government won't last. 

Comments

|9.1.09 @ 7:47AM|#

On the subject of understanding how dictatorships like those of Hitler and Stalin actually functioned, I would recommend reading "The Dictators" by Richard Overy.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1568527047/reasonmagazineA/

Barry Loberfeld|9.1.09 @ 9:06AM|#

Indeed, it is almost impossible for any honest thinker not to see that Marx was leading mankind on a road back to serfdom, e.g., the classic The Liberal Tradition in America's Louis Hartz, who recognized that of course socialism wasn't the innovation of a proletariat existentially compelled by an almost animistic "mode of production":

Actually socialism is largely an ideological phenomenon, arising out of the principles of [aristocracy] and the revolutionary liberal revolt against them which the old European order inspired. It is not accidental that America which has uniquely lacked a feudal tradition has uniquely lacked also a socialist tradition. The hidden origin of socialist thought everywhere in the West is to be found in the feudal ethos. The ancien régime inspires Rousseau; both inspire Marx.

It was therefore "no accident" that Marxist neo-feudalist theory translated into Communist neo-feudalist practice.

FROM HERE

Stretchy|9.1.09 @ 10:19AM|#

"I thought then how Finland had a strong democratic government, not afraid to charge riders for the real costs of public transport"

A strong democratic government would not be afraid to charge patients the real costs of health care, would not be afraid to charge retirees the real costs of retirement, would not be afraid to make home buyers pay the real costs of a new home, would not be afraid to let farmers receive the real value of their wares... etc...

Are these giveaways perhaps a desperate attempt by republicrats to maintain their clutch on dictatorial (near-dictatorial) power?

|9.1.09 @ 10:56AM|#

I think it's interesting that you chose to address fascism and dictatorship solely in the terms of the fascist "other," while many of the trends you described are actually readily identifiable within our own country.

Below, I've pulled several quotes from the article that should really be examined in the context of the United States. Specifically with regard to our foreign policy, the war on drugs (and other policies that create black markets), and our media.

"A foreign threat...helps dictators, as it is used to justify their despotic rule."

"Economic blockades can...reinforce dictatorial power and...make governments richer as they profit from...smuggling and black markets."

"control of the media allowed corruption to flourish. Intellectuals think the purpose of a free media is to allow criticism of government policy. But its main effect is to expose the corruption of government officials."

|9.1.09 @ 11:23AM|#

I think it's interesting that you chose to address fascism and dictatorship solely in the terms of the fascist "other," while many of the trends you described are actually readily identifiable within our own country.

Reminds me of the old saw about how fascism is always descending on America, but somehow always manages to land in Europe.

Warty|9.1.09 @ 11:44AM|#

That was a good read. More like that, please.

|9.1.09 @ 1:46PM|#

A strong democratic government would not be afraid to charge X the real costs of Y,

Odd, then, that strong democratic governments are so often in the business of subsidizing health care/transport/etc., precisely so that nobody pays the real cost.

LarryA|9.1.09 @ 4:35PM|#

If Americans better understood the weaknesses of most foreign dictatorships, we'd be less inclined to see them as great threats and to waste resources trying to remake them.

Or replicating their mistakes here.

Odd, then, that strong democratic governments are so often in the business of subsidizing health care/transport/etc., precisely so that nobody pays the real cost.

There's a difference between "strong government" and "strongly democratic government."

The Libertarian Guy|9.2.09 @ 12:24AM|#

Obama has, among his cronies, a self-avowed communist/black separatist as Green Czar, and an idiot on the FCC who praised Chavez's takeover of Venezuelan broadcast outlets.

I'd say we're on our way to joining the dictatorship clique.

jtuf|9.2.09 @ 9:18AM|#

Raising our immigration quotas is the most cost effective way to give democracy to people currently living under dictatorships.

|9.9.09 @ 5:20PM|#

The author of this article has no idea about Cuba. That´s the same problem concerning many American scientists, great teheoretical apparatus without knowing how to put the feet on the earth. What a pity! You cannot help for a transition in Cuba while guys like this author are giving us those unreal point of view