Background on the "Parable of the Isms," or the "You have two cows column
Ann Landers was a character/pen name created by the Chicago Sun-Times and used to offer “advice” through their syndicated advice column throughout the United States. In December 27, 2001, in response to a question by an “inner city English teacher” who wanted to know how to explain communism, socialism, and fascism without having to get into a history lesson, the paper reprinted the Parable of the Isms, or the “You have two cows” satire. Lander’s political explanation goes like this:
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Socialism: You have two cows. Give one cow to your neighbour.
Communism: You have two cows. Give both cows to the government, and they may give you some of the milk.
Fascism: You have two cows. You give all of the milk to the government, and the government sells it.
Nazism: You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes both cows.
Anarchism: You have two cows. Keep both of the cows, shoot the government agent and steal another cow.
Capitalism: You have two cows. Sell one cow and buy a bull.
Surrealism: You have two giraffes. The government makes you take harmonica lessons.
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Ann Lander’s version is at best a lame and politically misinformed piece of satire. At worst it is intentionally distributed agitprop designed to airbrush all the flaws out of Capitalism. Now, however, with the ecology collapsing and global fascism on the rise, it might be time for an updated answer to the question, one closer to actual reality, and one more in line with the historical trajectory predicted by Hegel and Marx. With this in mind, here is my humble take on the Parable of the ISMS.
You have two cows,
by Mike Sosteric
Capitalism: You have two cows. You are not happy with just two cows so you take other people’s cows. You get the people with no cows to look after your cows. You give them a little milk for their effort and say it’s natural or that God wants it that way.
Totalitarianism: You have most of the cows, but that’s not enough. You take control of the government and take all the cows for yourself, giving out less milk so you can have more. Everybody suffers. Some even starve. The people complain, but you proselytize and indoctrinate until you hypnotize the population.
Fascism: You have all the cows and totalitarian control of the government. Emboldened, you give out even less milk. Starving people start to move on “your” cows. Putting aside all pretense, you get the police to put the protestors down.
Nazism. You have all the cows, control of the government, and powerful civic, state, and military police forces. The people are starving and ready to revolt. You pick a vulnerable population to blame and get the people to murder each other. You get to keep hold of the cows.
Democratic Socialism: The people see through your charade. Starving, and with the environment collapsing all around them, they revolt, kick your ass out of office, take control of the cows, and fairly distribute the milk.
Communism. The government gives back the cows and then permanently disbands itself. You have two cows. The cows produce more milk than you need, so you willingly share it with others. Everybody lives happily ever after.
Below you will find the original column
Mike Sosteric (Dr. S.) |
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Just another loud mouth sociology professor, teaching sociology courses at Athabasca University. Check me out here at the Socjourn, over there at The Conversation and at academia.edu. |
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Speaking about educating yourself, maybe you forget that before Capitalists came to America, natives owned the land. Or maybe you forgot that colonial American’s took native Africans as slaves to work on the plantations that they took from the native occupants.
I don’t think anybody, conservative or liberal, is going to argue these facts. I mean, just because the “taking” is too far back in history for you to remember personally doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Did you just forget these facts? Did you not learn them in school? Or are you one of those people being manipulated by all the conservative fake news in your social streams into forgetting the basic facts of history, and the basic truths of our daily realities.