Are there any democratic 'socialist republics' not social democratic (or social market economy) ones but actually socialist? Scandinavian countries are definitely not socialist they have strong social safety nets and high taxes which results in a relatively high government spending to GDP ratio (44% in the US vs 58%, 54%, 53% in Norway, Denmark and Sweden) but that's about it. And if we're talking about "neo-feudalism" Sweden for instance has one the highest wealth inequality coefficients in Europe, it's even slightly higher than in the US, so from a purely cynical perspective they are just giving their 'peasants' enough to keep them quiet while a huge proportion of all private wealth in the country is held by a few families.
The US and European social democracies are not that different.
Sure, the US government and the insurance/university lobbies screwed up education and healthcare prices - but all western countries steal an inordinate amount of money to profit creating citizens and waste them around giving little back to the country.
According to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_..., the US is higher than Sweden now, before taxes and transfers, and that gap only widens if taxes and transfers, the primary mechanism governments have to reduce inequality, are taken into account.
Socialism is more of a process than a particular governmental form, but it does mean that the workers have control of society to the point that the capitalists are powerless (an inversion of the current situation). Other socialists would criticize me sharply for this, but I'm still trying to decide if stateless communism is practically achievable.
I was thinking in mind Cuba or Vietnam. I'm still trying to decide if China is still socialist or not, but there are good arguments in favor (they still control the commanding heights of the economy and are improving life for ordinary people at a rapid pace but things are far from perfect).
