Vietnam market economy

You don't understand (at least really understand in your gut) what is wrong with socialism until you've been there.  The regime can be benign, as Vietnam's was after the first couple years, or like Castro's Cuba is, and things still slowly deteriorate.  The reason is pretty obvious -- when you fine people for doing business outside the official businesses, there is no entrepreneurship.   Everyone just concentrates on working the system rather than actually taking risks and working hard.  The economy loses the benefit of the incentives to get rich and to see to it one's offspring are better off than you are.

Of course capitalism suffers from greed and exploitation and periodic panics (not that socialist societies don't have that too in different ways) and so the horses have to have reigns and blinders and so on.

When "new thinking" came to Vietnam about twenty years ago (following what had happened in China), there was a sudden boost in agricultural production and everyone (typical Asian mind set) went into business for themselves.  All that the government did then was stop prohibiting small family and neighborhood enterprises -- the big things stayed government owned.  Since then even this has relaxed, especially to draw foreign investment, and a few large enterprises have been spun off to private hand and there is now a Saigon stock exchange.  (Foreigners have no business being in it except maybe through a fund, and even then I would say be very wary).

The present government does seem to be on a course of emulating places like Sweden rather than Cuba (an obvious failure -- in his honest moments when he sheds his massive ego, even Fidel admits this).  The problem of course is what to do with the Party and its favored position -- as of course the ranks of the Party don't want to give this up, and having a selected group of vetted people run things avoids partisanship and elective corruption and stupid voters and even stupider politicians.