[pharrington]

You asked to name a country that ended up worse. Since we are not at the end of history, the only consistent way to interpret "ended up" is "in its state as of the time of this statement."

edit: My above interpretation isn't quite right. It should be "its state as of the latest known point in time the predicate was true."

[gozur88]

But China abandoned socialism in the '70s. It's only been since then the country started to turn it around.