Why is there a distinction between an autocratic and a dictator? What is the difference?
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They are essentially synonymous, just coming from different roots. Both mean one individual has power unconstrained by law. Other words with more or less the same meanings are tyrant and despot.
They are essentially synonymous, just coming from different roots. Both mean one individual has power unconstrained by law. Other words with more or less the same meanings are tyrant and despot.
We do not see any difference because we think both of them are illegitimate. But we have multiple words because they used to mean something different.
The Tzar of Russia was an autocrat. He owned everything and could do whatever he wanted (in theory). Russia existed to benefit him, and there was no source of legitimacy that could justify opposing him.
The dictator was a temporary office in the Roman republic. A dictator could be named to fight an especially dangerous foreign enemy, to show the plebs that the patricians were serious about listening to them (the promises were made by someone with more imperium than anyone else), to handle important religious ceremonies, to conduct elections wheb the consuls were away, etc. After a while, Rome stopped appointing dictators, because they weren’t needed as the Republic matured. The name of dictator was revived at the end of the Republic as someone with the ultimate power to save the Republic from its enemies (namely, those nasty Romans on the other side of the civil war). That meaning stayed on for centuries. But actual dictators just destroyed republican government while claiming to serve the people, and so a dictator came to mean anyone who seized power.
We don’t like autocrats or dictators, so we call everyone we don’t like an autocrat, a dictator, a tyrant, a despot, etc. Even if they are really just the public face of an oligarchy.
We do not see any difference because we think both of them are illegitimate. But we have multiple words because they used to mean something different.
The Tzar of Russia was an autocrat. He owned everything and could do whatever he wanted (in theory). Russia existed to benefit him, and there was no source of legitimacy that could justify opposing him.
The dictator was a temporary office in the Roman republic. A dictator could be named to fight an especially dangerous foreign enemy, to show the plebs that the patricians were serious about listening to them (the promises were made by someone with more imperium than anyone else), to handle important religious ceremonies, to conduct elections wheb the consuls were away, etc. After a while, Rome stopped appointing dictators, because they weren’t needed as the Republic matured. The name of dictator was revived at the end of the Republic as someone with the ultimate power to save the Republic from its enemies (namely, those nasty Romans on the other side of the civil war). That meaning stayed on for centuries. But actual dictators just destroyed republican government while claiming to serve the people, and so a dictator came to mean anyone who seized power.
We don’t like autocrats or dictators, so we call everyone we don’t like an autocrat, a dictator, a tyrant, a despot, etc. Even if they are really just the public face of an oligarchy.
We do not see any difference because we think both of them are illegitimate. But we have multiple words because they used to mean something different.
The Tzar of Russia was an autocrat. He owned everything and could do whatever he wanted (in theory). Russia existed to benefit him, and there was no source of legitimacy that could justify opposing him.
The dictator was a temporary office in the Roman republic. A dictator could be named to fight an especially dangerous foreign enemy, to show the plebs that the patricians were serious about listening to them (the promises were made by someone with more imperium than anyone else), to handle important religious ceremonies, to conduct elections wheb the consuls were away, etc. After a while, Rome stopped appointing dictators, because they weren’t needed as the Republic matured. The name of dictator was revived at the end of the Republic as someone with the ultimate power to save the Republic from its enemies (namely, those nasty Romans on the other side of the civil war). That meaning stayed on for centuries. But actual dictators just destroyed republican government while claiming to serve the people, and so a dictator came to mean anyone who seized power.
We don’t like autocrats or dictators, so we call everyone we don’t like an autocrat, a dictator, a tyrant, a despot, etc. Even if they are really just the public face of an oligarchy.
It’s more complicated now, but if we go by the original context, a dictator is a military leader, their power stems directly from control over the military, whereas an autocrat is just kind of in power because they say so and no one fights them on it.
It’s more complicated now, but if we go by the original context, a dictator is a military leader, their power stems directly from control over the military, whereas an autocrat is just kind of in power because they say so and no one fights them on it.
It’s more complicated now, but if we go by the original context, a dictator is a military leader, their power stems directly from control over the military, whereas an autocrat is just kind of in power because they say so and no one fights them on it.
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