In that context it makes sense to take a look at Muammar Gaddafi's ideological background and the general state of the Arab World in the mid-20th century.

Gaddafi was part of a group of army officers called the "Free Officers Movement", which seized power in the 1969 coup d'etat against Libyan King Idris I. The revolting officers, including Gadaffi, were firmly aligned with the ideologies of pan-Arabism and Arab Socialism and were inspired by other Arab revolutionaries of their time, most famously perhaps Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, but by other revolutions such as in Iraq and Syria as well. All of these topplings had in common that they were fueled by the emergence of Arab Socialism. The ideology of Arab Socialism came up in the middle of the 20th century and had a massive surge in popularity following WW2, when the Arab World began disentangling itself from its former European colonial powers.

Rejecting both capitalism and Marxism-Leninism, and condemning Western imperialism; Arab Socialism strove for the unification of the Arab World and the fair re-distribution of goods amongst the Arab people. It was specifically directed against the heavily Western-backed governments that had come to power following independence, which were viewed as allowing Western exploitation to continue. This resulted in the depositions of King Farouk of Egypt in 1952, of King Faisal of Iraq in 1958 and of King Idris in 1969. Now that we have the background clear, let's take a closer look at Gadaffi's actual time in power. Gadaffi ruled Libya as an authoritarian dictator from 1969 until his death in 2011, and just right off the bat I want to make it clear that regardless of what internet memes you might've seen hailing him, Gadaffist Libya had one of the worst human rights records of all of Africa. It was a bloody and oppressive dictatorship that systematically employed techniques like forced disappearances, torture and targeted killings. However, it is true; from the 1970s onwards the Gadaffi regime passed sweeping economic and social reforms aiming to improve the standard of living.

Until then, Libya had had a mixed economy with state-owned oil, banking and insurance companies, but also with a healthy private sector. From the mid-1970s onwards, Gadaffi moved more decisively towards an economic socialist system by expropriating land and industrial owners, nationalising large parts of the private sector, establishing workers' self-management committees and profit participation partnerships and banning the ownership of more than one private residence. Tripoli also doubled the minimum wage, introduced statutory price controls as well as compulsory rent reduction of between 30% and 40%. Gaddafi also wanted to combat the strict social restrictions that had been imposed on women by the previous regime, establishing the Revolutionary Women's Formation to encourage reform. In 1970, a law was introduced affirming equality of the sexes and insisting on wage parity. In 1972, a law was passed criminalising the marriage of any females under the age of sixteen and ensuring that a woman's consent was a necessary prerequisite for a marriage.

The health sector was also expanded; by 1978, Libya had 50 per cent more hospitals than it had in 1968, while the number of doctors had increased from 700 to over 3000 in that decade. Malaria was eradicated, and trachoma and tuberculosis greatly curtailed. Compulsory education was expanded from 6 to 9 years, while adult literacy programs and free university education were introduced.

Economically all of this payed off in early years, GDP rose from $3.8 billion in 1969 to $24.5 billion in 1979, and GDP per capita rose from $40 in 1951 to $8,170 in 1979, which was higher than in Italy at the time.

So yes, especially in the first years of his rule Gadaffi contributed greatly to improving Libya's general standard of living and strengthening her economy. However, neither does this remedy his egregious human rights violations nor does this negate the fact that corruption, fraud and embezzlement were rampant among the Libyan elite, which was one of the main cataclysts of the Libyan Arab Spring in 2011. Furthermore, the inefficiency of central planning, Libya's great dependency on oil exports as well as an embargo imposed by the US in 1981 lead to a stagnating and declining economy in the 1980s. Gadaffi responded by proclaiming the "Revolution within a Revolution", which lasted from 1987 to 1997 and saw the Libyan government liberalising the economy and re-opening small businesses. By the turn of the millennium, Libya had practically abandoned socialism and instead pushed for further liberalisation and privatisation of the economy, although Gadaffi never openly admitted to this. By 2004, there were $40 billion of foreign investment in Libya; in 2003 it had been just $7 billion.