Nothing in unaccountable rule keeps a ruler enlightened

The argument

Proponents of this position argue that the comparison is rigged by its own wording. Enlightened despotism is defined as rule by someone wise and benevolent, and then compared with democracy as it actually operates, complete with its quarrels and compromises. The honest comparison, on this view, is between the two arrangements as each really works, and the question is not whether a good autocrat would govern well but whether autocracy produces or preserves good autocrats. Proponents argue that it does not, and that the reason is structural rather than a matter of bad luck. A ruler who cannot be removed receives no reliable information, because those around them have every reason to report success and none to report failure, so error goes uncorrected until it becomes catastrophe. The same ruler faces no cost for self-dealing, and the discipline of having to explain a decision to people who can refuse it is absent. Even a ruler who begins wise and benevolent is therefore subject to pressures that erode both, while a ruler who begins otherwise meets nothing to stop them. The argument concludes that wisdom and benevolence in a ruler cannot be treated as given, because they are exactly what a political arrangement has to secure. Democracy, on this account, does not assume good rulers; it assumes rulers may be poor and builds in the means to find out and to replace them. Proponents argue that an arrangement which must simply hope for virtue is for that reason inferior to one which does not depend on it, whatever the best case for each might look like.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Defenders of enlightened despotism reply that democracies suffer the same informational problem in another form, since politicians are told what focus groups and donors want them to hear and are punished for honest bad news. They add that elections are a crude instrument for detecting incompetence, because voters judge on outcomes they cannot attribute and often reward the responsible party's opponents for events nobody controlled. On their account an autocrat can build an inspectorate and a competent civil service, and several have, so the claim that accountability is available only through voting mistakes one mechanism for the whole category.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The idealised comparison is standard in political argument, since democracy is also usually defended by its principles rather than its worst performances, so the charge applies to both sides equally. [Rejecting P2] Autocracies have built inspectorates, audit bodies and competent civil services that carry bad news upwards, so accountability is not available only through elections. [Rejecting P3] Elections detect incompetence crudely at best, because voters judge outcomes they cannot attribute and punish or reward governments for events outside anyone's control. [Rejecting C] At most it follows that autocracy carries a risk democracy manages differently, not that the better autocracy is inferior to the worse democracy.