[J Oswald]

Dictatorships, whether fascist or not, have historically either risen in developing nations, developed semi-autocracies, or developed democracies under severe internal and external pressures. What I find interesting is that the only dictatorships that have been successful from both a longevity and prosperity standpoint, such as Franco's Spain or Stroessner's Paraguay, have arisen out of the ashes of liberal or liberalizing states.

The question I pose in light of this is whether, like Marxism, Fascism and successful dictatorships require a preceding period of capitalist government and policy in order to take hold and thrive. As somebody who focuses most of his political energy on the developing world, the answer to this question is both important from a political sense, and interesting from the purely scientific sense.