What citizens want.
Y'know, most of those people believe that their citizens are entitled to things like housing, health care, clean water, that sort of thing.
I think most people who actually ended up living in collectivist nations, as opposed to fantasizing about what their leaders say collectivism would get them, made their own choices on these things.
I don't hear about a lot of people swimming to get into Cuba, although they are supposed to have all these great services. I didn't see boat people flowing into communist Vietnam from poverty-stricken nations. Nobody has to watch the borders to keep people out of North Korea.
Venezuela has enough oil that Chavez can play his games for a long time without wrecking his economy. Kind of like Saudi Arabia.