It's basically a tautology to say that things would look different today if things had gone differently in the past. I don't think it's true that a "good chunk

It's basically a tautology to say that things would look different today if things had gone differently in the past. I don't think it's true that a "good chunk of the US would be modern social democratic countries if the south seceded". Three US states together make up over a quarter (30.92%) of the total national GDP, one of those states is in the South. It's not a simple matter to simply say that the US should break up into smaller countries. Whether that's a desirable outcome or not is something I'm not even really going to touch.