[legodt]

Venezuela had a command economy that bet everything on an unstable natural resource. Terrible move, not related to socializing health care or helping the poor.

Cuba was economically starved by the US and its allies and unable to interact with the global economy. This paired with its early history of horrific human rights abuses led to a rough state that continues to this day. But, and this does not excuse how violent the state was in its early days, Cuba does have no unemployment or homelessness which is something remarkable.

Those are edge cases though. Look at the northern european countries, canada, or germany