The consequences and end result of Socialism are evident, if you open your eyes, ears, mind and heart. “Democratic Socialism” is the same thing with different window dressing.
Socialism, for those of you who don’t know what that means, is governmental control of the means of production in a country. Government bureaucrats determine what you are paid and what the factories will produce. If the bureaucrat in charge doesn’t think that iPhones (or whatever) need to be made, then there won’t be any iPhones made.
The problem with this economic model is that it is not agile, or able to quickly adjust to unanticipated needs or conditions. If a population needs Widget B instead of Widget A, which is being produced right now, individual companies in a free-market economy can switch to producing Widget B a lot faster than a single bureaucrat operating in a command economy. Bernie Sanders shot Socialism in the foot recently, when he told a lady running a hairdressing business in Tulsa, Oklahoma that "he knows nothing about hair dressing or the economy of Tulsa." No bureaucrat running things from Washington D.C. will have that kind of prescient knowledge about hairdressing in Tulsa, or the condition of the quality of cattle in Texas, and so on.
Another symptom of command economies is price-fixing. The bureaucrat decides the price of the item being sold. This invariably leads to black markets because price controls inevitably lead to shortages and/or rationing. Case in point, in 2013, there was (and still is) a severe shortage of toilet paper in Venezuela. A 2015 article shows this: An economist just explained Venezuela's chronic shortage of toilet paper. Basically, the Venezuelan government heavily subsidized the purchase of toilet paper and the companies that imported the TP then exported half of it to reap enormous profits and used that money to buy better stuff to sell. Because of the difference in currency exchange rates (the Venezuelan government said the exchange rate is “6.35 Bolivars to 1 US Dollar”, however real world says 800:1) the company re-exporting the TP makes 13,500% profit on the TP, rather than 20% selling it in the country. They then use that cash to purchase something not subsidized and can be sold at market prices. The end result is not enough TP for the people of Venezuela. Multiply that by hundreds of other goods and products and you see why their economy is in ruins. Since this price-fixing and profiteering affects every aspect of the economy, to say food and other essentials are in short supply is an understatement.
According to the Encovi 2016 Living Conditions Survey (sorry, it’s in Spanish), the bottom 75% of the population of Venezuela (since the rich almost never starve) have lost an average of 19 pounds in the past year because there is not enough food. 82% of the households in Venezuela live in poverty. This is a country that is sitting on their own ocean of oil. It's not like they don't have a valuable commodity. However, because the oil production is controlled by the government, they have destroyed that as well.
Some of you Socialists out there will say, “the right people weren’t running things.” Let me say this in response: It doesn't matter who is running things, it's a shit system and the best administrator with the best staff in history will still screw things up royally.
Here’s a few more data points that indicate a trend, not just anecdotal evidence:
In the 1970’s, the USSR (Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics) was importing US wheat because their collective farms weren’t producing enough to feed their population. The funny thing about it is, in the late 70’s, the Soviet farmers were allocated small plots of land where they could grow and sell wheat and vegetables. Those “small plots” quickly outperformed the much larger collective farms.
Today, thanks to decades of malnutrition and famine, both byproducts of a Socialist control economy, North Korean people escaping to South Korea are 1-3 inches shorter than South Koreans. Because of their “genetic purity” (there has been no significant immigration, and thus no "dilution" of the Korean race in hundreds of years), this height difference can be attributed solely to the lack of adequate nutrition on the North Korean side.
If these “malignant indifference” byproducts of an all-powerful, centralized government weren’t enough to put you off Socialism, might we discuss the 170,000,000+ people killed by Socialist governments in the 20th century? Most of these people died slow, horrible deaths due to starvation and disease. When those brutal Socialist governments got tired of waiting for them to die and were actually appalled by the temerity of these people to survive, then they just went in and shot them.
The paper in the last link refers to those countries as "Communist." True Communism is where there is no government. After transitioning through Socialism from Capitalism, when the leaders of the Socialist countries "decide that the time is right" (e.g., after they die), the government will "fade away" and everybody will work together and for all. Which is a pretty way of saying "Anarchy."
Anytime, anywhere someone else hundreds or thousands of miles from where you live had the ability to decide what you will be paid for your labor, where you will work, what you will (or will not) buy and so on, that never ends well for you. History is replete with those examples.