Economically, light socialism has also done better? Eg. Sweden or Canada.
Sweden and Canada fit that definition as well, and are not socialist countries according to what Marx meant by socialism. They're very much countries with a foundation of ownership rights and private enterprise, but taxed to a certain extent as to fund extensive government welfare programs. Of course, I'm not unaware that socialism is a word used loosely these days but within the context of discussing communism it's important to drive home the difference.
And of course, as someone that doesn't belong to any of the mentioned countries, I would say that the sentiment that a government like Sweden's or Canada's is better to live in than (pardon if I'm reaching here) the country that I believe you had in mind when making the comparison, is not only not universally accepted but very heavily debated across the world.
In a republic, the person with that power is also the person usually making the decisions, so when those decisions are bad, there isn't another party with the power to stop them.
In Canada at least(Canadian here) the Governor general does step in at times to prorogue or dismiss the government.
Socialism lost all proper meaning in the McCarthy era, but Canada and Sweden are specifically not capitalism in the way that capitalists say free markets are always better. The US is more capitalists than both those countries, and is worse off for it.
Certainly if you consider it hotly debated, you can't say that capitalist republicanism is the least bad, since alternatives are equivalent
The well-known phrase "it wasn't real communism" comes to mind because it applies and is true, since of course these results have never followed to the letter Marx's doctrine and intentions. But given the pattern of authoritarian states that follow every attempt at communism it is logical to conclude that the plan as stated simply does not survive in any desirable fashion once it starts being followed by real people to organize real people.
Capitalism and Republicanism (and no, for some people in the US that need the clarification: I certainly don't mean the party) as perfect plans also fail allowing a lot of evil to flourish, but their failure modes have performed much better in the long run than everything else so far. You can pinpoint any flaws you want, but you can't argue the results as there is no real counterexample with universally better ones.