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A bovine guide to political theory

Feudalism: You have 2 cows. Your Lord takes some of the milk.

Fascism: You have 2 cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

Pure socialism: You have 2 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.

Pure communism: You have 2 cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

Russian communism: You have 2 cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

Pure democracy: You have 2 cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

Representative democracy: You have 2 cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who get the milk.

American democracy: The government promises to give you 2 cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for speculating in cow futures.

Capitalism: You have 2 cows. You sell 1 and buy a bull.

Hong Kong capitalism: You have 2 cows. You sell 3 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 4 cows back, with a tax deduction for keeping 5 cows. The milk rights of 6 cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all 7 cow’s milk back to the listed company.

Totalitarianism: You have 2 cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

Anarchism: You have 2 cows. Either you sell the milk at fair price or your neighbors try to kill you and take the cows.

Dictatorship: You have 2 cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

Surrealism: You have 2 giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.