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A COWSMIC VIEW OF ECONOMIC POLITICS 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 cow. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.
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 a glass of milk.
BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM Your cows are cared for by former 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 Regulation ME-01 states you should need.
FASCISM You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.
MARXISM 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.
MARXIST COMMUNISM You have two cows. They are nationalized. You are liquidated as a class enemy of the proletariat.
PURE COMMUNISM You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.
STATE COMMUNISM You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour.
SOVIET COMMUNISM You have two cows. You 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.
CURRENT FREE MARKET RUSSIA 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.
DICTATORSHIP 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.
NAZISM You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes 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.
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, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Finally it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY The candidates promise to give you two cows if you vote for them. Once in office, Congress gives you a chicken and a goat and places an excise tax on cows.
DEMOCRATS You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being so successful, so you vote politicians into office who tax your cows. This forces you to sell one to pay the tax. The politicians use the tax money to buy a cow for your neighbor. You feel good. Barbra Streisand sings for you.
REPUBLICANS You have two cows. Both are pure white. Your neighbor has no cows. You are able move to a suburban subdivision, but discover the neighborhood covenant bans cows.
NEW WORLD ORDER DEMOCRACY You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point you have to sell both to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was a gift from your government.
SINGAPORE DEMOCRACY You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed farm animals in an apartment.
HONG KONG DEMOCRACY You have two cows. The government encourages you to keep farm animals in your apartment.
INDIAN DEMOCRACY You have two cows. You worship them. The cows are indifferent about this.
SWISS DEMOCRACY You have two cows. Neither is yours. You are making money just keeping them and being sure that no one else knows they exist.
CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
VENTURE CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the second one. You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have down-sized and are reducing expenses. Your stock price goes up.
FREE ENTERPRISE 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.
EUROPEAN UNION FEDERALISM You have two cows. They demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.
CHINESE MARKET REFORM You have two cows. Because of the importance of male heirs, you keep searching until you finally get a bull as well. You give all your attention to the bull. The government bans you from having more than one cow. You kill both cows, so you can keep the bull. The bull favors democracy. When the government finds out, it takes the bull away to be starved and tortured in jail in hopes of learning the names of other cows that support democracy.
LIBERTARIANISM You have two cows. You teach them how to read a Constitution.
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.
ANARCHY Keep the cows. Steal a few more cows.
UTOPIANISM You have two cows. Mother Nature zaps the cows, turning their udders into eternal milk-shake dispensers.
SURREALISM You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
FEMINISM You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.
RADICAL FEMINISM You have 2 cows. You declare an amazonian state free of bull oppression and sit around waiting for the cows to hump each other.
ENVIRONMENTALISM You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
COUNTER CULTURE Wow, dude, there's, like, these two cows, man. You got to have some of this milk.
OLYMPICS-ISM You have two cows--one American, one Chinese. With the help of trilling violins and state-of-the-art montage photography, John Tesh narrates the moving tale of how the American cow overcame the agony of growing up in a suburb with divorced parents, then mentions in passing that the Chinese cow was beaten every day by a tyrannical farmer and saw its parents butchered before its eyes. The American cow wins the competition, severely spraining an udder in a gritty performance, and gets a multi-million-dollar contract to endorse Wheaties. The Chinese cow is led out of the arena and shot by Chinese government officials though no one ever hears about it. McDonald's buys the meat and serves it hot and fast at its Beijing restaurant.
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