> no one cares to know the private details of the powerless
I think you may want to reevaluate your thoughts on that.
Both times democracy was birthed, it happened so because the elite (cultural, political and economic) of society agreed that a majority rule that protected its minorities was the best way to secure long term stability and welfare. Because giving everyone (this hasn’t actually included everyone in most of of the history of democracy) a voice was the most efficient way of nobody getting their head cut off by angry mobs (to variating success).
Sure you could have a dictatorships but from the Roman Empire up until modern day China, that wasn’t exactly a great idea if you wanted your society to prosper. Not because dictatorships don’t work, but because they take immense and unopposed structure of governance that isn’t too bogged down by corruption to pull of successfully.
The Romans did it by making each providence rely on the others. One producing weapons, another tools and trade and a third food. Along with a massive standing army this made rebellion hard, and having very few external enemies meant the oligarchy was “free” to fuck around during their long periods of competent leadership. This is very simplified and not completely accurate, but it’s a good enough picture of what made the last prominent dictatorship work.
Until modern day China rose to power, but how did it move from Maos cultural revolution to what modern day China is today? I’d argue that control and information are the key answers.
Because how do you control all those powerless people, who are actually the real power of your society if they ever join together? Where “western” communism and socialism from Marx to Lenin always focused on the time after the revolution where the proletariat would have taken control and redistributed the wealth of society, Maos take was always that the revolution never ended. His doctrine was one of information control, and while that obviously didn’t work so well 50 years ago, it works really well in a works where the elite knows everything about you at all times.
You can’t assemble in secret. You can’t spread dissent. You can’t have the wrong religion. You can’t even jaywalk without society knowing and being able of intervening before they have to resort to the more drastic measures of their North Korean neighbours.
This is what total surveillance gets you. A society for people who fit in to have prosperous lives, and, the capability to weed out anyone who doesn’t early enough that you don’t need to “sanitise” the whole field in which they grow.