As a Brazilian that has been following the news since Chavez took power in 1999, the answer is: Socialism happened, with everything that usually follows along with it.
Venezuela today has two ways out of it: 1) a coup by the army (unlikely since the army is very corrupt and connected with the government) or 2) a civil war (more likely). There is no democratic way out probably, since democracy is dead over there, along with the law system.

When this is over, Venezuela will take decades to recover. Worst part is that even if it start recovering, the first manipulator that arrives with a "its USA fault, power to the people, evil corporations are to blame, lets take our oil back" will win the elections.

In a sense, this is Latin America's curse and one of the reasons I think it will never truly develop.

Also, if one asks, no I dont think nordic countries are socialist, they are very very capitalist.

Happened in Brazil in late 80's. It was crazy. I barely remember but love to hear stories about it from people that lived it. Prices would change 2 or 3 times per day on markets. Absolutely crazy.

edit: inflation reached 80.000% per year at some point during late 80's in Brazil.

An overreliance on oil was economically stupid. But half of the economy?! That can't be explained by just that!

Venezuela was run by a socialist politician. It wasn't itself socialist. What happened was inevitable either way.

Socialism will always lead to a dictatorship and suffering for the people, it never fails. When will people learn? Capitalism is not perfect, but it's proven to be the best system developed thus far. I think its only downfall is excessive greed, which from time to time leads to big crashes. It's not enough to make a profit, some instances want more and more profit until something bursts at the seems and the whole construct comes crashing down. This is why there should be adequate regulation instead of this fantasy of unlimited growth, there is no such thing.
Nordic countries don't have anything close to actual socialism, they have a mixed economy that is basically capitalism with an emphasis on social safety netting. This is achieved mainly through relatively heavy taxation.

How is Venezuela any different from that?

I have the impression that people are mixing up the concepts of Socialism, Capitalism and so on. European economies are capitalist. The welfare state does not make them partially socialist. They follow a Keynesian model, that uses state intervention to stimulate the economy and reduce social inequality. Calling this "socialism" is ridiculous, specially when Keynes itself was not even polite when criticizing Marxism.

Discussing if a Keynesian approach is better or worse than a Liberal, Austrian School, style is a huge debate with important economists on both side having their points. Most likely, both have their best applications and different countries use ideas from both.

Venezuela isn't following a "Nordic model". Maduro is following the Marxist model of early Communist countries, trying to gather all production power in the hands of the state while creating a heavily state-planned economy (Keynesian models are about state guidance, not absolute control). While Keynesian and Liberal models argue about how much the state can try to influence the economy, Venezuela is following a model where the state controls the economy, so its poor decisions destroyed the economy.

The Marxist model is an utopia because it assumes that the only thing that has inherent value is work and that the means of production can be controller by the workers itself. During a transition period, the state assumes all means of production. No Marxist real model was capable of leaving this transition period and the totalitarian government that was supposed to give power to the people becomes the real monster.

My opinion is that Keynesian models won't work as well in countries with high corruption, because the politics will abuse the system for their own benefit. So for Latin America in general, a Liberal model seems more adequate. While I do admire the social security of European Keynesian economies, it has no point if the government simply is too corrupt to be effective. The state will make poor decisions, creating recessions and ruining people's lives.

This guy knows things.

I would just add that I dont know if we can really say that Europe follows the Keynesian model all the time, ar if they accept it as they mantra. I think in a sense they float between Keynes and Freidman, depending on the era, level of debt, crisis etc. Btw I dont believe Keynes model is self sustaining in the long run and it can have several other impacts in the economy, specially for poor countries like in latin america.

I think first you need to get rich, then you can start spreading the wellfare. In Latam we try do distribute the money that we dont even have.

This is a more serious response so I'm going to break this down into points.

1. I was referring to the private ownership of the means of production. Original post attempted to equate the welfare state and taxes with socialism so I was being a bit facetious.

2. Fair definition, although this point would actually immediately disqualify Norway because the government aims to work within a capitalist framework.

3. As far as I'm aware with Venezuela and Chavez, his ideology was basically utopian socialism. Without emulating Cuba and the USSR, he imagined that he could reform Venezuela to socialism with the use of nationalization, worker's self management and coops. Strangely enough, Chavez believed he could do this while also maintaining the bourgeois (and consequently no class struggle) in Venezuela. To me it seems that Chavez liked the language of socialism much more than the theories of socialism itself.

Article about Chavez's "Socialism in the 21st Century".
XXI Century Socialism

You're not wrong calling the utopians, "socialists", however since some people are looking to demonize and reduce socialism without understanding what it is, I'd rather not call either Norway or Venezuela socialist.

4. I agree for the most part.

Well, not quite it's much less about Germany and much more about the Soviet Union (although even before then the elites were demonizing socialism). With the exception of World War II, the American public has been fed propaganda for almost a century now.