I am a mother, if you beat your child then you are a bad parent. Don't have kids if you can't stop yourself from beating them.Sorry but I must call this an utter BS.
I have a perfect real life example for the debate in my parent's friends.
They had their first child and wanted to bring him up stress-free. He is a quiet, introvert child who NEVER misbehave. Never made any problems for them, they never had to use the force on him, they always TALK through with him about good/bad, and it works. Sounds like a perfect example supporting this type of approach to children.
Until they got their second child. She is a perfect polar opposite of the first child. She is noisy, does not listens to what their parents are asking of her, misbehave often, even to the point she is tormenting her mom - she has a bone cancer or something and the child is hurting her while jumping on her or tripping her, even when she has repeatedly been told not to do that, on same occasion. They still try to talk with her exactly like they did tried with their first son, but it's clearly not working.
The conclusion is obvious - it all depends on the child. Some children can be brought up without any force, other have different character which responds to authority through subordination.