Comics

Saying that every state is authoritarian is missing the point. When we say that a state is authoritarian, we mean that relatively, the people are much more oppressed by the elite.

Sorry I disagree with trying to quantify "authority" in order to put in relation. It's becomes meaningless. Authority either exists or doesn't, it's a binary.

Even anarchists only oppose hierarchical authority.

As I'm reading the link I see that the author compares Bakunins understaning of authority, to that of Engels. The Author's interpretation of Engel's text is, that it argues against anarchists, when in fact it argues against "anti-authoritarians" and therebay misunderstands it significantly lol (Ctrl+F "anarchist" yourself https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm). The author of your link further highlights their misunderstanding in the section "Does organisation imply the end of liberty?" and says "Engels argument proves too much. As every form of joint activity involves agreement and “subordination,” then life itself becomes “authoritarian.” Yes, Engels indeed proves that "authoritarian" is a meaningless term and authority can have different forms.Engels doesn't even say anything about wether organization ends liberty. Engels acturally argues that "authorty" transforms. "If we took Engels’ argument seriously then we would have to conclude that living makes freedom impossible!" That's not even what Engel's is saying in the text.

Engel's defintion of authority ("Authority, in the sense in which the word is used here, means: the imposition of the will of another upon ours; on the other hand, authority presupposes subordination. [...]" is quite elegant. Organization Engel's defines as "combined action". Engels further asks the abstract question whether organization [combined action] is possible without authority [the imposition of the will of another].

In your link the author writes "However, Engels is simply confusing two different things, authority and agreement." and literally falls into "These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves." Further down your author writes: "For a given task, co-operation and joint activity may be required by its very nature." and uses and example of the organization of train networks. (Guess what example Engels used to showcase how authority is transformed?)

Read Engels yourself if you don't believe me. There's a qualitative difference between reading about Marx, Engels, Stalin, Lenin, Mao and reading them.

But are they? Yes, China has lifted a ton of people out of poverty, but as long as most employees don’t own the means of production, they are being oppressed,

Yes they are. Hardly seems oppressive, when Harvad's Long-term survey reveals Chinese government satisfaction

and the hands of the means of production don’t seem to have been transferring.

Yes it is. The fact that you have the state tightly regulate capitalism and outright forbidding the formation of a financial capitalist class (China's banks are public. Find out how Jack Ma is doing after they tried to ascend to financial capitalist by creating ANT pay), have a state that works in the interest of the majority (Stopping the Real Estate Bubble and make housing affordable, while with a 95% homeownership rate; Massive Public transport; Renweable engergies, etc.) and also encourages worker coops (e.g. Huawei) and China’s Revised Company Law looks very promising (Keep in mind it's the economist, but damn even that makes it sound so good https://archive.md/VIEPf ).