Chicago

Right on.

I think lemmy is filled with a lot of people who (maybe) understand this in fewer words. Case-in-point: there are plenty here who are acknowledging this dynamic played out through landlords and ownership of private property.

Making the leap from understanding that type of authority to the authority utilized by AES countries takes some time for some. Similar in the way reactionaries interpret Foucault's description of institutionalized power as inherently negative, power exercised by the state isn't inherently bad, either, especially when the alternative is allowing capitalists to claim it for themselves.

Pointing out that suppressive authority exists even in the liberal democracies that nominally espouse 'freedom' is a good first step but far from the last. The Tienanmen square thing is.... well it definitely gets in the way of that conversation. It's a bit of a socialist's Godwin's Law.