If you're running a dictatorship, you don't really have to worry about the welfare or the property rights of the ordinary citizen. Only the people who keep you in power, a very small group, matter.

We really can't tell the difference between people who might seek power for some greater good and people who seek power just to aggrandize themselves. For example, all revolutionaries say that they want to uplift the downtrodden.

The fact that we see some people doing what appears to be good civic-minded deeds may be because that is their true intention, and it may be that that is their best way to hold onto power in a setting where they have to depend on a lot of people.

Dictators, unlike Democrats, depend on a small coterie to sustain their power. These backers, generally drawn from the military, the senior civil service, and family or clan members, have a synergistic relationship with their dictator. The dictator delivers opportunities for them to become rich, and they protect him from being overthrown.