PURE SOCIALISM You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everybody 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 all the eggs and milk that regulations say you should need.

COMMUNISM You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, then sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM You have two cows. Your neighbours help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

COMMUNISM (reality): 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.

COMMUNISM (Stalinism) You have two cows. You are shot as a counter-revolutionary. The cows are put in the Gulag.
The milk? What milk? Who are you, and why are you asking about milk, Comrade?

CHINESE COMMUNISM You have two cows. You are made to take care of them, the government takes all the milk.

<<<      Spelling help from               
Paul T Hopper

AUSTRALIAN DEMOCRACY You have two cows. The government nationalizes your herd to control the price of milk and level the playing field for consumers. Each cow has a calf and they grow into cows. The milkers union stage an industrial action (strike) to protest the increase in the number of milk cows. A new party comes to power and the economic rationalists privatize your herd to control the price of milk and level the playing field for producers. The government orders the slaughter of two cows to cut production and control the price of milk.You throw a huge beef barbie (barbecue), with XXXX (how Australians spell beer), invite the milkers union, and give a speech espousing the merits of a level playing field. You still have two cows. (Thanks  to Del Dyreson for this one!) 

AUSTRALIAN DEMOCRACY 2 You have two cows (and their two little calves that arrived by boat from a war torn country). The government locks them up in a prison in the middle of the desert. The Minister for Immigration gets a privately owned company to guard the cows and milk them for
$1 billion. The cows riot and the guards use tear gas on them. You help the cows break out in the middle of the night. The cows turn up at the British Embassy and ask for asylum. They are rejected out of hand and sent back overseas because they are illegal according to the government. The government then bans illegal cows from setting foot on sacrad Australian soil and pays $1 billion in aid to poor countries to get rid of the illegal cow problem. You get no milk.
(Thanks  to Jon Seymour  for this one! 21/07/02) 
 

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY You have two cows. Politicians decide who gets the milk.

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY You have two cows. The government taxes you to the point that you have to sell both. Your tax is used to support a man in a foreign country who has only one cow, which was originally  one of yours, a free gift from your government.

BRITISH DEMOCRACY You have two cows. You feed them sheep brains and they go mad. The government does nothing.

LIBERTARIANISM (USA) 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."

APARTHEID You have two cows. You give the black cow's milk to the white cow to drink and don't milk the white cow.