Much of Europe was far more socialist back in the 50's to the 70's. In most nations, major industry was government owned. The tax rates were onerous. That changed in the early 80's as socialism on that level brought nations to the edge of bankruptcy.
I can remember watching a 60 minutes episode where they were interviewing this famous Swedish author. She said that the government that year told her that her income taxes amounted to 110% of her income!
In Britian, the automotive, steel, coal, aerospace, and shipbuilding industries were going bankrupt from costs and building shitty quality products few wanted. France was the same.
One thing Allende in Chile did was partially privatize the national retirement system. That is, the government started investing a portion of the funds in private companies, stocks, bonds, etc. The economy made a massive recovery almost overnight.
Bottomline: Socialism simply doesn't work. Most nations can tolerate a degree of it if it is carefully managed and not let spin out of control.
Universal government run healthcare has a lot of economic negatives. In the UK, the NHS is the nation's largest employer now and the system threatens to bankrupt the country. I had to use the military healthcare system for years. It is ponderous, slow, inefficient, but it generally does provide reasonable care in the end.
