This is an interesting discussion for me, since it ties into a pet theory of mine.
Take a look at what Julius Nyerere implemented in
Tanzania and what was implemented
Somalia during their socialist and Communist rule. Economically, both countries were disasters, as the government proved completely incapable of fostering solid economic development. However, what they did manage to do was improve things like education and health by providing these services to the population at large. Similar points have been raised about Cuba's own healthcare system and its trained physicians, and I recall similar things happening in the Soviet Union from my high school studies.
Now, on the other hand we have right-wing dictators like Pinochet in Chile, under whom the economy might have looked good...but I can't help but wonder exactly how much of that wealth actually trickled down to your average Jose in the streets. It reminds me of Victorian Europe, when Charles Dickens was writing stories like "Great Expectations" and "David Copperfield", and Victor Hugo was writing "Les Miserables" decrying the way so many people struggled to get by in ostensibly wealthy countries...and in reaction to which Marx and Engels created the Marxism that was to create so much misery and horror in the next century.
To me, this suggests that the private sector is, rather obviously, very effective at creating wealth and technological progress. However, the catch is that wealth doesn't always trickle down and can easily become concentrated, even as some private businesspeople try to game the system to keep out competitors and maximize their profits in unethical ways.
On the other hand, governments are very effective at providing social services such as health care and education to mitigate the effects of things like unemployment and unplanned life events (e.g., accidents, sudden illnesses, or anything else that negatively impacts someone's life) and enable people to still participate in the larger society. What governments are no good at, on the other hand, is creating wealth and directing the economy as a whole, which is why Eastern Europeans were stuck with second-rate garbage like the Trabant and the Lada, and why North Korean science is something Wile E. Coyote would laugh at.
Hard socialist and Communist countries, like Tanzania, Somalia and Cuba, show how miserable things can be when the government tries to forcibly collectivize everything, while hard individualism in societies like Victorian Britain show that, despite however wealthy the country is, that wealth and the social order that it depends on can be undermined if too many people struggle just to make ends meet and have a hard time participating in the larger economy.
As I've said elsewhere, including on this forum, that balance between individual initiative and collective action, and between governments and markets, has been one of the keys to our success in Canada. Ideally, governments and private sectors can play off each other's strengths and compensate for each other's weaknesses. That's why I've always hated the polarization that's so present in politics these days-as if anyone who supports some sort of tax increase or new government program is a closet Communist, while anyone who wants to cut spending or defends the private sector secretly wants to slash and burn every kind of government activity to the bone...when, as is so often the case in Canada, the truth is much closer to the middle.
CKA Uber 
CKA Uber 
