Erik, it is always nice to hear from you. As I disagree, there is more fun.

I do not know where you learned about socialism in Poland, but I lived over there at that time. You are wrong. To your excuse, I do not see any factual reporting of how socialism worked in Poland. I have in mind a serial of articles on the subject.

There is also very little literature about the case of Argentina. I found a very interesting study and wrote about it; the link is in the article above. Populism demoralizes people. Without solid democratic traditions, it took Argentinians about half a century to destroy their prosperity. Because of strong republican traditions, after a century of gradual implementation of socialistic policies, Americans begin experiencing serious problems. But, identically as Argentineans, they cannot see the cause. Norway became rich much later. Assuming no changes, it may take a century before the fruits of socialism will become unbearable. Poland had relatively strong democratic traditions; hence, socialism could not go full blow like in the Soviet Union. But before WWII, Poland was barely getting out of the 19th-century poverty, and then it was completely destroyed. Opposite to today’s Norway, there was no wealth to waste. With that narrow margin for error, socialists bankrupted Poland much faster than they did in Argentina.