Even in a democracy, you will still have a small group of people imposing their will over others, and only giving them what they feel they deserve. The only difference you are seeing is that of scale. Instead of a collection of elected representatives who are granted disparate powers by the plurality of people they are ruling over in their various capacities as governors, a benevolent dictatorship has one person who is granted all governmental powers by the people they are ruling over. Even a democracy can, briefly, be a tyranny. It just requires multiple bad actors to work together.
The primary difference is how long it takes for the wheels to fall off. In a dictatorship, it can - and usually does - happen virtually instantly. That’s the primary reason democracies (and republics) are the way they are - to slow down the encroachment of tyranny, hopefully enough to allow people to react to it and overturn it. (And as we’re seeing in the USA right now, that’s no guarantee.)
Even in a democracy, you will still have a small group of people imposing their will over others, and only giving them what they feel they deserve. The only difference you are seeing is that of scale. Instead of a collection of elected representatives who are granted disparate powers by the plurality of people they are ruling over in their various capacities as governors, a benevolent dictatorship has one person who is granted all governmental powers by the people they are ruling over. Even a democracy can, briefly, be a tyranny. It just requires multiple bad actors to work together.
The primary difference is how long it takes for the wheels to fall off. In a dictatorship, it can - and usually does - happen virtually instantly. That’s the primary reason democracies (and republics) are the way they are - to slow down the encroachment of tyranny, hopefully enough to allow people to react to it and overturn it. (And as we’re seeing in the USA right now, that’s no guarantee.)