Tommi, as provocative as always, yet with a bright point =)

To rephrase myself: I see little point in asking if the dicators are good or bad humans. The question is: how does their way of governing work, what side-effects does it have, and what is necessary to keep things running. And then the next question is: Is this what the dicator really wants? Is this what the people are happy with?

In horsemanship there is a strong tradition of "alpha leadership", which is more or less based on idea that the horse should be a bit afraid of its owner, showing respect by not questioning the leadership of the owner. That works extremely well, but it has quite a many side-effects which I'm not personally happy with. (And, if you ask me, in many cases it is also the horses who aren't all that happy with that kind of handling.) So, I prefer to go with smoother methods.

In a human society dicatorship (in the many forms of it) works, too. But as Tommi points out, it is based on (mutual) fear. The dicator is afraid of a violent coup, the people are afraid of oppression and state-run violence. If we want something else, we'd better seek different models of organizing the society. But I'm not going to start a protest movement demanding anything like this - I prefer my personal escape into the woods, coping with the society but otherwise minding my own business =)