What goalposts are you talking about? At any rate, plenty of other countries have their own rags-to-riches stories (India being the first to come to mind). I don't think such isolated/exceptional cases tell us much about what sorts of economic systems produce the best overall results, and to link back to the original post, many of them probably have their own "carrot stories" behind them too.

Oh and the school lunch program is still socialism, btw!