Of course Plato thought philosophers were the fairest, smartest and most just; he was a philosopher! Lenin fancied himself a philosopher king. It took 2400 years from Plato's writing, but the world finally saw a real live philosopher king, and it wasn't pretty. One thoughtful commentary I've come across recently in regards to the Bolsheviks is that they didn't realize until it was too late that dreaming up policy and governing were not at all the same thing (something I think a lot of the so called think tanks in this country fail to realize, as well).

Unfortunately, we also have seen unchecked "democratic" presidents. Robert Mugabe comes to mind, as does Chavez. It seems to be a general rule that when power is too entrenched that corruption takes root.

The Chinese seem to be building an interesting government. I despise their views of free expression and environmental regulation (among other terrible policies), but they certainly make one wonder if state capitalism with one party that changes leadership periodically can, in principle, succeed. In this system, one man can't get too powerful, and broad policy initiatives can be executed across several administrations. They are far from perfect (and I don't want anyone to read this as a an endorsement of the Chinese government), but I think we can at least learn something from their system.