Reference to Cows

This is a study of many of the world's economies as explained by 'Reference to Cows'.

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, 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 sell it on the "free" market.
CAMBODIAN 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. You 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 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
TIGER ECONOMY CAPITALISM: You do not have any cows, and world market prices are too high at the moment, but you do have an uncle in the state bureaucracy who can arrange for a merchant bank bridging loan so you can speculate on the gap between the average futures price and the eventual wholesale price of milk on the Singaporean stock exchange, which will provide enough capital to buy into a cartel which has cornered the market on air conditioners for government installations, and which pays kickbacks to your uncle, who together with his cronies then uses his leverage to ensure the overfinancing of the holding company, thus bringing about a crisis of liquidity in the livestock markets, and causing a dramatic fall in the price of cows, which you buy and then lease back in exchange for government securities with an option to purchase. The milk is then used as collateral in the refinancing of…