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"Deep in the human heart lies the longing for a dictator," The Globe's Marcus Gee wrote Saturday in his essay Those stumbling strongmen
"Someone to straighten out the mess the politicians have made. Someone to round up the chisellers and the thieves. Someone to end all the bickering and cut through the red tape. A Caesar. A good czar. A man on horseback.
"Even in modern, democratic societies, there is a grudging admiration for the efficiency of the autocrat. Mussolini made the trains run on time, didn't he? And Hitler got Germans working again.
"They may have been monsters, we tell ourselves, but by golly they got things done . . .
Marcus Gee (Deborah Baic /The Globe and Mail)
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"But take a look at the record, and the claims made for the efficiency of autocrats quickly fall apart. Most of them are terrible bumblers."
Whether you agree or not, it's a provocative thesis, so we're pleased that Mr. Gee was online today to answer your questions on his essay and on the issues it raises.
Your questions and Mr. Gee's answers appear at the bottom of this page.
In addition to his responsibilities covering the Asia-Pacific region, Mr. Gee also writes a weekly column on international affairs for The Globe.
Born in Toronto, he graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1979 with a degree in modern European history, then worked as a reporter for The Province, Vancouver's morning newspaper.
He spent four years in Asia in the early 1980s, the first three in Hong Kong as an editor, writer and correspondent for Asiaweek magazine, the last as a reporter for United Press International in Manila and Sydney.
After returning to Canada, he worked as a foreign affairs writer at Maclean's magazine and as senior editor at the Financial Times of Canada.
He joined the Globe in 1991 as an editorial writer.
Mr. Gee has won two National Newspaper Awards for his commentary. In 2002, Amnesty International gave him its annual John Humphrey award for human rights reporting.
Among the events he has covered are the war in Kosovo, the violence in East Timor and the turmoil surrounding the overthrow of Indonesian President Suharto.
Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.
Sasha Nagy, globeandmail.com writes: Marcus: Thanks for taking reader questions. Interesting essay, it made me question my own perceptions of democracy. If asked, I would unquestionably state my preference for democratic institutions over the alternative. Yet, in times of crisis, I am probably like many who have perhaps too readily given a government or a leader carte blanche to deal with the problem, trusting that they will do the right thing. As Trudeau did in invoking the War Measures Act, or Bush in authoring the Patriot Act, sometimes our leaders act a lot like autocrats. What do you think that says about us?
Marcus Gee: Nice to get some response. I look forward to the debate.
At least in a democracy we can pass judgment on things like the War Measures Act and the Patriot Act at the polling booth. I'd also argue that, as dubious as they may be, those measure at least had to pass the hurdle of legislatures and independent courts. That would not happen in, say, Pakistan.
Wei-Lim Chan from Richmond, B.C. writes: I don't agree with Marcus Gee's argument that democracy is more efficient than dictatorship or the opposing counter argument dictatorship makes the trains run on time. In his argument he gives example of badly run dictatorships (while he does note the exceptions like Singapore and Chile). But he does not dwell into what makes states like Singapore and Pinochet's Chile work. Both Singapore and Chile are efficient because they have a system where the rule of law is followed and very clean government. Just good government plain and simple. Putin's Russia and China do not fit this description. The argument Mr. Gee should be making does democracy help in good governance? In what ways does it hinder it? Or is it really irrelevant. You can have bad dictatorships as well as bad democracies. Another problem with Mr. Gee's argument is he does not define democracy in the beginning of his argument. Does it mean democracy or liberal democracy? I can't really tell from his article. If I take it to mean liberal democracy then we have a problem. Liberal democracy comes with a lof of stuff that make it work: independent judicial systems, clean bureaucracies, free press, laws protecting individual rights etc. Ideally what the West wants the whole world to have is liberal democracy. But when voters in West Bank elect Hamas or the Germans choose Hitler during the 1930s, we say the process is flawed. Mr. Gee should spend less time harping about democracy and more time focusing on 'liberalism' or define what exactly we mean by democracy?
