I needed a magical way to answer the question, though!
I’d actually go further - dictatorships don’t really exist, just steeply tapering autocracies. The dictator is at the top, but just like everyone else they spend their days avoiding being knocked down the pyramid, and they can’t know and often don’t care what people are doing a couple steps down. Meanwhile, the people who aren’t right on top get absolutely fucked by whoever is a couple steps up from them, with the step in between acting as intermediaries.