Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Cows and Politics - A Quick and Easy Primer
Today was a standardized testing day at my school and I was assigned to administer the test in the history room. On the wall was a poster explaining the different political ideologies in what is possibly the simplest of terms. I thought I'd share them here.
Here goes:
Now isn't that a lot clearer than when you learned it in high school?
Here goes:
- Capitalism - You have two cows. You sell one of them and buy a bull.
- Democracy - You have two cows. Your neighbors get to decide who gets the milk.
- Representative Democracy - You have two cows. You then elect someone with the best face for television to tell you how to care for the cows.
- Socialism - You have two cows. The government takes both cows and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows and they give you as much milk as they think you need.
- Bureaucracy - You have two cows. The government regulates what you can feed them, when you can milk them, and then pays you not to. The government then takes both cows, shoots one, milks the other one dry and pours the milk down the drain. Then the government requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
- Bureaucratic Socialism - You have two cows. The government takes both cows and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows where they are cared for by the chicken farmers. Your job is to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers.
- Feudalism - You have two cows. Your Lord takes some of the milk.
- Communism - You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them and everyone shares the milk.
- Russian Communism - You have two cows. You care for them and the government takes the milk.
- Fascism - You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you.
Now isn't that a lot clearer than when you learned it in high school?
