The cows are a (bad) metaphor for the means of production, obviously. The metaphor sneakily puts you in the shoes of a capitalist and, whoa, it turns out capitalism is good when you are one of the few it benefits.
I can't believe I was once taught this bullshit in school.
"You have zero cows. Your boss has two cows. You milk both of them. Your boss gives you some of the milk" is both an accurate model of capitalism and the same in practice as their model of communism
You milk both them, your boss pays you as little wages as they possibly can and then you can pay the boss to buy milk.
Communism: You have two hundred cows; what the fuck is wrong with you? People are starving, kulak. :gulag:
Communism: You kill your two hundred cows to prevent the government from distributing the milk. This causes a famine, but history will blame it on them, not you.
communism: the cows are liberated from their bondage. you have no power over the cows.
Why aren’t the cows being paid when they’re the ones making the milk? Explain that one neolibs
technocapitalism is when you artificially inseminate cows in cells covered in their own excrement and despair
chacha is the main reason why i laugh out loudly at least once a day. I'm glad when i can give some of that back :Care-Comrade:
Capitalism: Your child has a medical emergency. You sell both your cows to pay for the surgery and you are left with nothing. Your neighbor allows you to work for some milk, but the amount of milk you get is periodically lowered. You are not sure if it will be enough for your family this month.
It also distorts perceptions of inequality by implying that just two cows makes you a rich person who stands to lose under socialism. A more apt metaphor would be
CAPITALISM: You own 10,000 cows. You sell 5,000 cows and buy 5,000 bulls. A local political party wants to redistribute 100 of your remaining cows among the 3000 other inhabitants of your town, most of whom have zero cows. You can buy off the local politicians for the price of 5 cows.
Nah its a great metaphor. Rich people own cows (the means of production) poor people get some milk (if any)
You have no cows:
COMMUNISM: You vote for a delegate to your regional council who elects a government to give you milk and beef
SOCIALISM: You get a share in several cows, and can vote on the proportion of milk to beef
TRADITIONAL: You are a starving vagabond, and thus an outlaw. Find a lord to employ you, or men will find you and throw you in a dungeon.
CAPITALISM: You are a starving vagabond, and thus an outlaw. Find a lord to employ you, or men will find you and throw you in a dungeon.
Monarchy: You have all the cows
Oh, well shit, I guess that's the way to go then. Sorry everyone who isn't royalty, the society understanders have crunched the numbers and it turns out this is actually best.
I remember reading one of these except it went into a ton of weird things like, Surrealism: You have two cows. The government buys your giraffe. Now you have three ostriches.
Also the one I remember best: Iraqi Corporation: You have no cows. Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them you don't, but they bomb your country anyway. You still have no cows, but now you have democracy.
