Are cops just the ones on the beat, in uniform, harassing the unhoused, killing protestors or just innocent people caught in the gears of capital? I think most of us would say no, obviously not. There are also detectives and all manner of plain clothes officers, but there are also all the prosecutors, the judges, the DAs etc.
These are all surely also cops, right? After all, we call her Kopmala for a reason. So what about landlords then? Do they not slot neatly into this power structure? Are they not just a half step removed from that legitimized arm of violence that is the state enforcing property rights?
Can your landlord inspect your home? Can they decide on a whim to utilize that violent arm of the state to kick you out on the street if they feel that you are not adequately maintaining - or even better, improving - the value of their property?
In all of these ways the landlord is more of a cop than the DA or the judge.
I don't dislike Russians. I am also curious of your definition of "authoritarian." I am pro-liberation and pro-revolution, both things which would require a change in authority, either the colonized or the otherwise oppressed exerting their "authority" over their oppressors. Revolutions are by nature authoritarian. Also most of those things should be reviled and are not contradictory.
To elaborate on what @ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net said, as a landlord they must collect rent. That is inherently an extractive and exploitative relationship and they can only extract rent with the implicit threat of violent removal from your home if you do not pay it. And the arm of the state with the monopoly on said violence is the police, ergo landlords are cops.
More recent scholarship on cargo cults has challenged the suitability of the term for the movements associated with it, with recent anthropological sources arguing that the term is born of colonialism and prejudice and does not accurately convey the nature of the movements to which it refers.
![Nakoichi [they/them]](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/8ed10517-e3b3-43d6-8a44-d5c73baa7437.png?format=webp&thumbnail=128)
Okay so what are cops?
Are cops just the ones on the beat, in uniform, harassing the unhoused, killing protestors or just innocent people caught in the gears of capital? I think most of us would say no, obviously not. There are also detectives and all manner of plain clothes officers, but there are also all the prosecutors, the judges, the DAs etc.
These are all surely also cops, right? After all, we call her Kopmala for a reason. So what about landlords then? Do they not slot neatly into this power structure? Are they not just a half step removed from that legitimized arm of violence that is the state enforcing property rights?
Can your landlord inspect your home? Can they decide on a whim to utilize that violent arm of the state to kick you out on the street if they feel that you are not adequately maintaining - or even better, improving - the value of their property?
In all of these ways the landlord is more of a cop than the DA or the judge.
Not all cops wear badges or uniforms.