Comparing two nations is not necessarily a comparison of their government's economic ideologies.  There is much more to the degree of prosperity than whether or not the stated intention of a country's leaders is to favor the well-being of the common people.  The problems of Venezuela originated long before the current and recent administrations; none of them managed to diversify the oil-dependent economy, so its national income varies widely by global oil prices, and ideological-based sanctions have greatly worsened it, as has economic sabotage by its own capitalists.

Another factor is the degree of corruption within the government.  The stated ideology does not always correspond to actual motives.  In an avowed capitalist government, corruption is "business as usual", but a socialist system requires a higher degree of honesty.

Too many think in terms of either/or, as if a system must be either socialist or capitalist.  In most of the world, neither exists alone.  The most successful countries find a good balance between the two so that there is relatively less economic inequality, and private enterprise is well-regulated so as to do less harm in its pursuit of profit.

A lot of people don't get that.  It isn't the economic system itself, it's the amount of corruption in it.  The reason socialism works in Northern European countries is they have corruption under control.  Since Russia never did get control over it's corruption, it really doesn't matter if it is communist or capitalist, their economic system stinks either way.

The reason socialism isn't working any better than capitalism in South America is they haven't dealt with their corruption issue.  In those places that they have, their economic system works.

China is more or less of a hybrid between capitalism and communism (and it isn't socialism because the government does indeed own a lot of the industry).  The reason they are an economic power is that they have gotten almost draconian in their quest to eliminate corruption.

Venezuela's problem is corruption, they had the same problems under capitalism as they have under socialism, but the corruption at this point is even worse than it was in the past.  Sanctioning them isn't going to fix that.

If the US really wanted to tackle the issue instead of economic sanctions, it would enforce strict rules on how companies it deals with operate.  It doesn't matter if it is a Venezuelan company, what are it's corruption controls?  If they pass the test, you deal with them.

They do have some pretty strict rules in place about dealing with Foreign officials, and a company can get in a lot of legal trouble for bribery.  In fact it is the ONE place where the corporate veil doesn't help, if you paid the bribe, YOU are on the hook, and the company can't pay your fine for you.