FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
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 as much milk as you need.
BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes
them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. They 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 as many 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.
PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.
RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.
DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
SINGAPOREAN DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed farm animals in an apartment.
MILITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
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.
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: The government promises to give you two cows
if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for
speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair “Cowgate”.
BRITISH DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You feed them sheep’s’ brains and they go mad. The government doesn’t do anything.
BUREAUCRACY: 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. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks
the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to
fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to kill you and take the cows.
CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
HONG KONG 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, then execute a debt/equity swap with
associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax
deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are
transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company
secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all
seven cows’ milk back to the listed company. The annual report says
that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the fung shui is bad.
ENVIRONMENTALISM: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
FEMINISM: You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.
TOTALITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: You are associated with (the concept of
“ownership” is a symbol of the phallo-centric, war-mongering,
intolerant past) two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society)
bovines of non-specified gender.
COUNTER CULTURE: Wow, dude, there’s like…these two cows, man. You got to have some of this milk.
SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.