World Ideologies as Explained by Reference to Cows

Pure Socialism
You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn
with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The
government gives you all the milk you need.

Bureaucratic Socialism
Your cows are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care
of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The
government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you
should need.

Fascism
You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care
of them, and sells you the milk.

Nazism
You have two cows. The government shoots one for being of
insufficient genetic purity. Several Bureaucrats oversee your
operations with the surviving cow. They sell all of the milk, but you
are permitted to retain a portion of the profit. Later, the
government takes the remaining cow and shoots you for having had a
cow of insufficient genetic purity.

Pharaohism
The Gods have two cows, both given into your care. You must feed and
milk them. At regular intervals the Priests take the milk to the
Temple. The milk not used by the Gods is later shared with you. If
you don't give the Priests a problem they may let you into the
Afterlife.

Caesarism
Caesar, as The State, has granted you two cows. You must feed and
milk them. The Caesar's soldiers sometimes take the milk to Rome. If
you don't give them a problem they don't burn your farm.

Feudalism
You have two cows on the Manor's land. The Lord takes as much of the
milk as he wants. Also your wife and daughters when it suits him. If
you don't give the Sheriff a problem he won't burn your cottage.

Pure Communism
You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you
all share the milk.

Real World Communism
You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker
about who has the most "ability" and who has the most "need".
Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows die of
starvation.

Russian Communism
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government
takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell
it on the black market.

Russian Free Market Economy
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes
all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on
the "free" market.

Cambodian Communism
You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you. No one
ever sees the cows or the milk again.
Militarianism
You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

Totalitarianism
You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever
existed. Milk is banned. No one ever sees you again.

Authoritarianism
The State has two cows and a person to tend them. The State decides
what to do with the cows, the milk and the person.

Technocracy
You have registered two cows. Two guys in white lab coats inspect
them. Later, lab tests show you have a genetic defect. You are
terminated and someone else is given the cows.

Pure Democracy
You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

Representative Democracy
You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets
the milk.

British Democracy
You have two cows. You feed them the remains of other cows and they
go mad. The government doesn't do anything.

Texas Democracy
You have two hundred thousand head of cattle. One of them gets Mad
Cow. You sue Oprah.

Bureaucratic Democracy
You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can
feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk
them. Then it takes both, looses one in the system and milks the
other. It pours the milk down the drain. You are then required to
fill out forms accounting for the missing cows. And fines you for
clogging the drain.

Pure Capitalism
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

American Capitalism
You don't have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy
cows, because you don't have any cows to put up as collateral.

Enron Capitalism
You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed
company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the
bank. He then executes a debt/equity swap with an associated general
offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for
five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an
intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by your CFO
who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on
six more.

Globalism
You find someone in a Third World Country who has two cows. You pay
him a few cents a day to milk them. You ship the milk to the First
World and sell it at a huge profit.

Environmentalism
You own a parcel of rural land and put two cows on it. You are
immediately cited by the zoning enforcement division of the County's
Community Development Board. In short order several state and
national environmental groups file actions against you. Your water
rights are questioned. Your solid waste plan is questioned. Your
sanity is questioned. In a vain attempt to avoid a trial, you pay to
have an Environmental Impact Study done to determine the impact of
the cows on your neighbors. During the Public Comment phase you learn
that none of them want a smelly dairy in their backyards ¨¢ and that
one of them, anonymously, turned you in to Zoning Enforcement. You
are dragged into court anyway, and found guilty of a Code Violation.
You have 30 days to come into "compliance" or lose your property.
Every time you return to court to prove you are compliant, Community
Development has changed the code! All the while you are investigated
by scores of bureaucrats from all levels of government. Your business
hemorrhages red ink as the toll of fees, fines, court and legal costs
(and required bribes) mounts. You have to move your cows to
increasingly more remote locations as all the private land available
for grazing in your area is being quietly bought up by non-
governmental organizations and made into "nature preserves." Finally,
you move your cows onto public lands. The government, misled by
biased scientific studies conducted by scientists on the payrolls of
environmental and multinational organizations, becomes concerned
about erosion and bans you from grazing your cows on public land
(which you, as a citizen, "own"). Meanwhile, the Animal Rights
movement gets legislation passed banning you from milking or killing
your cows. Soon, to be in accordance with international treaties, the
government is forced to kill one of the cows to reduce overall
greenhouse gas emissions. While they are at it, they confiscate any
motor vehicle older than five years, for the same reason. Your
original rural property is then condemned under eminent domain and
made into a corridor for high tension power lines from the
new "clean" nuclear power plant in the next state. Your remaining cow
is taken by federal agents in SWAT gear in the dead of night and sent
to a regional holding facility from which it is sold to some guy in a
Third World Country who will be paid a few cents a day to milk it.
You may buy milk at the market, in recyclable containers, but only if
show your national ID card which includes encoded information on how
much milk you have already purchased in particular time period. If
your transaction is deemed unusual by an artificially intelligent
computer program it will be flagged for human attention. You may be
laundering milk! All the while, you will be required to continue to
pay taxes to support the public lands you are not permitted to use,
to pay for the research used to deny you the use of that land, and to
support the United Nations organization which oversees all public
lands (which will have been turned into UN bio-spheres by then).

Political Correctness
You are associated with (the concept of "ownership" is a symbol of
the phallocentric, war mongering, intolerant past) two differently -
aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified
gender. You do not milk them for to do so would violate their rights
as a species. You wear all man-made materials, as you would never
consider harming these beautiful creatures of Gaia. You have no clue
where milk or hamburgers come from.

Surrealism
You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica
lessons.

Protectionism
You have two cows. Foreigners also have cows. You believe that those
foreigners are milking their cows and selling their milk here for
less than you can. You get the government to pass levies and tariffs
against foreign milk. You also get the government to compensate you
for your loss to foreign milk producers. Soon the government is
paying you not to milk your cows, while milk produced off shore sells
at an inflated price. You are paid to do nothing while poor children
go without milk.

Libertarianism
Its none of your damned business how many cows I've got or what I do
with 'em!

Pure Anarchy
You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your
neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

Russian Anarchy
Your cows are shot in the street. You are shot in Mexico.

American Anarchy
The closest you ever got to a cow was your black leather jacket with
the circle A on the back. You wear ripped up jeans and have a stud
through your tongue. You think if you skate real rad maybe you can
smash the State.

Anarcho-Syndicalism
You have two cows. You want more control over the price of milk and
less government interference in your dairy operations. You and your
buddies stage a General Strike. Milk trucks are parked, blocking
important highways and access to key buildings and facilities. It
soon spreads to other industries, shutting down the nation. Nobody
get any milk until your demands are met.

Criminal Syndicalism
You don't own any cows, but you know who does. You and some guys with
names like "Fingers," "Lefty" and "Louie" hide shotguns under your
overcoats and go have a few "woids" with the guys with the cows.
After a bomb mysteriously goes off in a barn you have control of all
the milk on the Lower East Side.

Illuminism
A Secret Cabal has two cows. One is sacrificed in a Grove in
California. The other tells the President what to do.

Bruce Durnism
You only have one cow, and you're milking the bit for all its worth.

Author Unknown