"If it can not be described metaphorically using cows, then it can not exist."
-Geoff Johnson
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 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 drop dead 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.
CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM
You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
DICTATORSHIP
You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT
You have two cows. The government thinks one is smuggling drugs and it is shot. The other cow actually was smuggling drugs.
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 sheeps' 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 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.
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.
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.
LIBERTARIANISM: You have two cows. One has actually read the constitution, believes in it, and has some really good ideas about government. The cow runs for office, and while most people agree that the cow is the best candidate, nobody except the other cow votes for her because they think it would be "throwing their vote away."
HINDU SOCIETY
You have two cows. You use them to do labor, provide milk, etc. until they no longer can, and then you worship them.
ITALIAN SOCIETY
You have two cows. They go missing; as you amble about the countryside looking for them you see a beautiful woman. Life is good.
NEW YORK SOCIETY
You have two cows. You throw one out in the street to get a cab to stop. The other cow gets stabbed before it can get into the cab. The cab driver yells something in a language you can not understand, and you are left on the curb with two dead cows.
MARXISM
You have two cows. One of your cows doesn't work and exploits the other cow which works. This is the way it has always been throughout history.
SOCIAL DARWINISM
You have two cows. One of your cows produces milk in great quantities so you keep it. The other cow does not, but you get a leather coat and some hamburger out of it.
BIG BANG THEORY
You have no cows. Billions of dust particles collide. BANG! You have two cows.
PARANOIA
Two cows are watching you.