Democracy vs Dictatorship: some examples in differing historical contexts
Democracy is always a complicated and fragile construction, but combined with a market economy it is the most suitable project when we think of the well being of individuals. Perhaps Great Britain and the United States are the most successful examples of the kind, or at least the most durable, with some actual stress in the later case.
Dictatorship, in whatever form, is the most destructive undertaking in the realm of social organization, as it corrodes the free will of individuals seeking a self control over the riches they produce. State control of private property is a self-killing of economic progress and social justice.
Think about two of the most corrupt and perverted dictatorships actually in place in the world: Russia and Venezuela. The economic distortions and repressive public policies built by Putinism and Chavism are so strong that will take decades to rebuild a functional economic system and a normal political structure, responding to the free will of the individuals in economy and politics.
Trump is a candidate for building a dictatorship in a country traditionally democratic in the political realm and a market economy in the productive sector. He will not succeed in destroying both structures becoming a kind of Putin or a Chávez. He will be ultimately expelled by the free will of the American citizens.
China is a different kind of social and political organization: never knew a democratic system, but is building a market economy with sufficient success to enrich people and eliminate most extreme forms of social misery and pervasive poverty.
Brazil is also a different species in the political and economic realms: always an oligarchic and unequal social structure, with a low quality and fragile democratic system, and with a market economy largely dominated by State control over its functionning.
But Brazil, despite some authoritarian temptations, will endure as a political democracy with some disfunctional aspects in its realization, together with a less dynamic economy as the result of a less productive and innovative capitalism due to the heavy hand of the State over social structures, especially Education. The preservation of patrimonialistic and oligarchic features in Brazilian political organization explains its highly unequal income distribution, which is destined to endure.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Uberaba, July 11, 2025
