My dad sent me this today. It brought a smile to my face. I hope it does the same for you.
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World Ideologies as Explained by Reference to Cows
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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 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 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 neighbours help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.
Real World Communism
You share two cows with your neighbours. You and your neighbours 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.
Perestroika
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.
Chinese Communism
You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
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.
Pure Democracy
You have two cows. Your neighbours decide who gets the milk.
Representative Democracy
You have two cows. Your neighbours pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.
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. Then 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.
Pure Anarchy
You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbours try to take the cows and kill you.
Pure Capitalism
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
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.
Environmentalism
You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
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.
Surrealism
You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.
AIG 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.
