Chavez initially tried to take power via a military coup, and that has not been forgotten -- he was jailed and subsequently came at it from a different point of view, using Cuban/Russian advisors to control the propaganda; control the message. He relied a lot on the zero-sum game of Putin to establish and coalesce power quickly. It became cult like, the personality of cult, in its adoration of him through Chavismo.
Yes what you say is so true...
The slow creep of socialism, eventually takes over everything, and a limited and controlled budget keeps spenting fixed, by not allowing the freedom of Laissez-faire economics. Grey and black markets are punished ruthlessly, and the system stagnates...in the end there is no incentive for anyone to start anything new. Creativity dries up and the end is the Soviet example, were a few very corrupt indecisive leaders take old and prosper at the expense of many. Populations become spiritually exhausted, broken and eventually a collapse under the sheer weight of the complacency -- the total corruption and un-renewed innovation.
Socialism is a utopian philosophy in a dream world --reality on the other shows it does not work because people are dishonest, and true individualism is killed as that is were creativity truly lies, that is were the entrepreneur lives. That is really were societies progress.
Socialism in the end becomes a philosophy of misery, a philosophy of the victim.
Agree that a free society is one where societies progress, creativity lies and entrepreneur live but globalism and the quest for cheap labor has made that problematic when sheer greed contaminates the process.