leftwing dictators, bothside dictators, and rightwing dictators

[Gustaf]

Mainstream left and right is incompatible with dictatorships, obviously.

Left and right are really vague terms though. Certain elements of left and right are fundamentally incompatible with a dictatorship (such as anarchism on the left and liberalism on the right).

Generally, it seems to me that the idea of economic freedom makes a dictatorship at the very least hard to maintain. If you don't control peoples' money it is difficult to maintain the political control required to run a dictatorship. Therefore, economically right-winged dictatorships, in the sense of being free market-oriented is something of a paradox.

(and please don't tell me China is a free market country. It's not. I've been there, I have a girlfriend with Chinese roots, so I know a little bit about it. That entire idea is just a popular catch-phrase with no base in reality.)

That's not really to say that dictatorships must have a left-winged economic policy either. Most dictatorships control the economy in order to enrich a tiny elite at the top. That isn't the official policy of any ideology, naturally.

It always depends on what you associate with left and right and what kind of left and right you're talking about.

[Gustaf]

(and please don't tell me China is a free market country. It's not. I've been there, I have a girlfriend with Chinese roots, so I know a little bit about it. That entire idea is just a popular catch-phrase with no base in reality.)

China will probably never be a "free market" country (nor should it be), because of all the western cultural prerequisites necessary for the seemingly ubiquitous term "free market."  They will most likely always be under "socialism with Chinese characteristics," as Deng put it (emphasize the Chinese characteristics).  But neither is it desirable that we move towards them, as it would be just as absurd for western Christians to adopt a perfectly fulfilled Confucian system.

I don't believe in that sort of cultural relativism. I think all people deserve their rights and a decent system of society regardless of their cultural background.