Venezuela was gang-ridden. Their "economy" consisted of "you go outside to try to trade money for goods and services, some punk comes along and demands all your money and all their goods, you both go home empty-handed." Nobody was bothering to run businesses, because their productive output would all go toward — as economics would put it — "illegitimate rent-seekers."

No change in economic system would have made this better. They needed to get rid of the gangs. And they did. Things are getting better there now, though there's a delay, as people still need to start and ramp up the productive businesses that were infeasible under the gangs.