Economic and Governmental Structures

part 1. economic structures
socialism is an economic structure correlative with capitalism and a nation's economic structure is dependent on which one of three conflicting features should give: fairness, freedom, equality.
For instance:
if a nation is fair, people who work harder can accrue more money.
if it is free, then people will give their money to their kids.
but then it cannot be equal, for some people will inherit money they didn't earn.

These three features need not only apply to money or homogeneously to the entire nation.

part 2. governmental structures
Governments lie on a spectrum colored by the three dimensions of politics described in The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita & Alastair Smith; with democracy and dictatorship residing at the edges.
the dimensions of politics are:
1. the interchangeables or nominal selectorate: composed of everyone in the nation who can vote.
2. the influentials or the real selectorate: composed of everyone in the nation who actually ends up voting.
3. the winning coalition or essentials: composed of the least number of people critical to the election of the person seeking office.

if the 2nd and 3rd are a very large percentage of the 1st group, then we get a democracy. but if the last 2 are a very small percentage of the first then we have a dictatorship.

part 3. how government and economic plans shape a nation & the difference between Venenzuela and Norway
Venenzuela has a tiny winning coalition compared to its set of interchangeables, making it a dictatorship. Dictatorships like to use aspects of socialism because fairness and equality tend to make people complacent which reduce the probability of revolt, and avoid the freedoms of capitalism because that would give the interchangeables too much power which could threaten the winning coalition.
Norway has a large winning coalition compared to its set of interchangeables, making it a democracy. Democracies use the freedoms of capitalism and some aspects of socialism out of necessity. when a nation doesn't have the option of revenue through natural resources like oil, then they have no choice but to rely on tax revenue driven by capitalism. The aspects of the economy that the private sector isn't very good at tend to be socialist. fire, police & health departments, utilities.

Norway already had a large coalition compared to their interchangeables when they gained their oil wealth, so routing the wealth from oil towards public policy was the smart choice.
Venenzuela already had a somewhat small coalition compared to their interchangeables when they discovered oil, so routing the oil wealth to their small coalition was the easy choice.