Even if it's an illusion, it's a mighty oppressive system; where the system tells you that going against the system is going against Freedom, and the Greater Good.

I mean it's always been like that. It's just a different religion today.

There wasn't always a lot of physical force applies in past oppressive systems either; it was always at arms length, and often a lie. Kings weren't going to come and behead you in your village. But the idea was pushed that kings owned everything. It's kind of the same here.

Yes, but the power imbalance between the nobility and peasants was significantly greater back then.

The greatest illusion may very well be the greatest enslaver, right?

True. The enslavement of the mind is far stronger than the enslavement of the body.

But I don't think it is especially depressing because democracy is entirely dependent on the illusion. The second that illusion collapses the entire system implodes. Unlike a feudal monarchy where the power of the system came from its military power funded by the vast wealth of the monarchs.