Tightly planned economy never works.
It's when you break down tasks to each factory and agricultural collective, and you expect them to follow those numbers. In the end it's chaos. Trust me, you don't want socialism, at least not in the form it existed. It's one of the most squandering economic model ever. Workers are quite unmotivated, as it is more about the gain of the collective than their personal advantage, and to be frank people are selfish. Also, the "factory belongs to everyone" views contributed a lot to the waste.
You were told that every people in a socialist country had a job. That's only half true. They indeed had a stable working place, but many of the unqualified workforce did nothing, but sweep the factory yard twice a day and that was it. They had no real tasks.
And the worst of all, since it was all ideology based they had to make uncompetitive or downright useless products because it was all about prestige and pride of the socialist worker and the state. (You know why do the Italian cars of the 70's rust that badly? Because they were made from awful Soviet steel!)
Socialism does not work. When people accuse Obama of that, they are doing it out of sheer ignorance I think. Just because he wants regulate certain aspects, that does not make him a commie. Take West-Germany for example. They developed their own ways to be a capitalist country. Yes, they added a strong welfare system.
I admit, things went bad in the 1970's (petrol prices, anyone?) so in the 1980's the whole concept of the welfare state was revised, to stimulate economic growth, yet keep a desirable welfare system.
USA clearly needs something to be done. I don't really know what's up there lately, but I can imagine that there must be some serious tensions in the society, which could easily have some unwanted effects, such as civilian unrest. In welfare states, the society is pretty consolidated, which means less tensions for its members, because the poor people can be appeased.
