Does that answer your question?
Yes, thank you for the elaboration! I agree with your points regarding the police state. May I suggest Behind the Bastards' 3-part on the history of policing (~2020 Jun 16)?The US has been a police state for more of its history than not. And the series underscores the Socialist tenets in your explanation: unions absolutely work. The police union in the US is ridiculously effective at protecting those "workers." Too bad that union is protecting workers who stomp on the citizenry.
I will add that direct democracy prima facie sounds great, and I used to also hold this belief. We absolutely have the technology for a full direct democracy. The problems with direct democracy are legion, some of which we are seeing right now in the US with low-information voters. Now scale that up. The enormous volume of legislation and policy research on any single issue would stop most citizens dead in their tracks. Take international trade policy for example. My employer paid for me to study international trade compliance for five years. Ain't nobody got time for that, and international trade policy hits all of us in the wallet, waistline, daily interactions, and health/wellness measures. We hoi-polloi still need to work, get dinner on the table, and do laundry. Voters should understand all of relevant issues at least at a cursory level, but wish in one hand, shit in the other... Hell, how many voters actually read the voter guides and research their local candidates? How many attend city council meetings?
If you want as direct a democracy as possible, focus your efforts at your local and state level. Small changes in your community have ripple effects. Get your neighbors and local social circle to educate themselves and attend. Connect with your local council and governing boards.
As @zxqwas@lemmy.world pointed out: don't sweat the labels; choose the policies that appeal to your sensibilities. The labels and affiliations will shake out from there.
Fully agreed. This is the nature of power. It is a problem as old as humanity, and there have been loads of attempted solutions to that end. Probably the oldest known is the Insulting the Meat Ritual in hunter-gatherer tribes to prevent hunters from becoming egotistical. Given the rarity of remaining hunter-gatherers, we can guess how that worked out.
Decentralization (why we're here in the Fediverse, right?), social ownership of the economy, revocation of corporate privileges... all excellent goals to which we can aspire. It's a bit hackneyed but the truism applies: think globally, act locally. On social ownership of the economy, may I suggest looking into timebanks? Join your local timebank if it exists; start one if it doesn't. A lot of what timebanks (can) accomplish represents most of these ideals. Disclosure: I'm a founding board member and the treasurer of my local timebank, so I have a lot of bias for timebanks as one potential arrow in the quiver of effecting social change.