Socialism in itself will always fail, and any entirely socialist country will fail. Despite the title, socialist countries don't succeed, but there are some beneficial aspects of socialized parts of a nation's economy. Socialism is centered around wealth redistribution while capitalism is centered around private ownership and emphasis on investment of capital. When socialist systems are applied in a generally capitalist country, they can genuinely improve it depending on the context.
A common example of a socialized system in a generally capitalist country is universal healthcare in Canada. Per capita, healthcare costs are much lower and people are healthier, compared to the united states. Canadians are guaranteed hospital services through universal healthcare, but supplements such as dental care and medicinal coverage are usually privatized (about 2/3s of Canadians). The OECD reports good scores on the Canadian healthcare system and rates of survival of breast and colon cancer are some of the highest.
While Canada does do well in things like primary care, other parts of healthcare don't do so well. Canada is notorious for its long wait times for specialists and noncritical surgeries. Canada has addressed this and has reduced wait times for at least 75 percent of patients
In 2011, a poll found that 57% of Canadians were satisfied with their access to healthcare services, compared to the United States at only 25%.
Norwegian countries such as Sweden and Norway have similar healthcare systems and have the highest quality of living in the world. These countries have government-supplied healthcare, but zero ownership of businesses or media, as is typical with communist/socialist countries.
In fact, these aren't the only western countries with some sort of socialist policies. Even the United States has a socialist aspect to it, such as regulation on business, trading, investing, and social security. Regulation on generally private things is an aspect of socialism and in our day and age is very necessary. While socialism like this is very water-downed, it follows the ideology
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