A Guide to Economic Systems and Models

NB Original author uncertain. Some entries are old but it has been extended recently. I have added to it and amended some of the originals. I therefore claim editor status only.

A GUIDE TO ECONOMIC SYSTEMS AND MODELS

Internationally recognised systems

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away.

ANARCHISM
You have two cows.
There is no state, but because property is theft, you have to blow them up and then shoot yourself.

CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your bull impregnates your neighbour’s cows. When the calves arrive you steal them. As you now need more land, you evict your neighbour and make him work for you. You and your milk-fed children now live off the labour of your neighbour and his entire family.

THE VENTURE CAPITALISM MODEL
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on several more.
You sell one cow to buy a new Conservative Prime Minister, leaving you with eleven and a half cows.
When some clever dick discovers that you only ever had two cows and both of them are now mortgaged out to a Swiss bank, you demand that the public buys your china shop to prevent your bulls wrecking it.

SURREALISM
You have two blue giraffes.
The Great Truffle requires you to take harmonica lessons.

Nationally-based models

THE AMERICAN MODEL
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.

THE GERMAN MODEL
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

LE MODÈLE FRANÇAIS
Vous avez deux vaches.
You go on strike, obstruct the roads, shut down the ports, block the Channel Tunnel and organize a riot. You demand one of your German neighbour’s cows as compensation for losses suffered during the Franco-Prussian War.

THE JAPANESE MODEL
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called Cowkimon and market it worldwide.

THE ITALIAN MODEL
You have two cows but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

THE SPANISH MODEL
You have two cows.
They live in a farm on the plain because that’s mainly where it rains.
The old wife of a peasant tells you that cows lie down when it’s about to rain.
This seems like a good idea so you invent the siesta.

THE GREEK MODEL
You have two olive trees.
It’s far too hot for cows but, hey … no problem.

THE SWISS MODEL
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

THE RUSSIAN MODEL
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

THE CHINESE MODEL
You have two cows.
You have 3,000 people milking them and 6,000 soldiers guarding the cows.
You thus have full employment, high productivity, and a bloody big army.
You imprison the journalist who tries to photograph the cows.

THE INDIAN MODEL
You have two cows.
You worship them.

THE BALKAN MODEL
You and your neighbours had two cows between you.
During a scuffle over ownership, the cows are cut into several small pieces.
Now nobody has any cows so you decide to fight over the field boundaries.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN MODEL
You have two cows.
One is white and one is black.
You also have two fields. You put the white cow in the field covered in lush green grass and the black one in the barren field.
One cow dies from over-eating and the other dies of starvation.
You jist can’t inderstind it.

THE BONZER AUSSIE MODEL
G’day, mate! You have two bloody cows.
You couldn’t give a dingo’s fart about them poor bastards when you’re on the bloody amber fluid.

THE NEW ZEALAND MODEL
What’s a cow?
You got lots of sheep though.

THE IRAQI MODEL
You used to have a cow but you gassed it, because it tried to wander off.
You boast to your neighbours about how many cows you have, though in truth you now have exactly none.
No-one really believes you but as they hate you, they bomb the crap out of you.
When they come to inspect your cows, you’ll still have none but if you did, they’d be allowed to vote.

THE IRISH MODEL
You have two cows.
They disagree about religion, so you set sail for Boston, Massachusetts and leave them to it.
On 17th March every year, your descendants pretend they’re still Irish.

THE WELSH MODEL
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive but not as sexy as the sheep.

THE SCOTTISH MODEL
Ye hiv twa coos.
Nobody can understand a bloody word you say.
You punish the whole world by inventing the bagpipes.

THE ENGLISH MODEL
You have two cows.
One is mad.
The other is locked up in a ‘bovine-related rustic dwelling place’ (a barn) due to the health and safety risks of milking it.

Regional variations on the English model.

THE MILTON KEYNES MODEL
(Named after economists, Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes)
You have two cows.
They are made from concrete.

THE WINDSCALE MODEL
You have two cows.
They glow in the dark.

THE GEORDIE MODEL
You have two cows.
They do voiceovers and present TV programmes on Channel 4.

THE EAST ANGLIAN MODEL
You have two cows.
One is your mother, one is your daughter, both are half-sisters and also first cousins (once removed) through your great-aunt Buttercup who lives in Norwich.

THE EAST LONDON MODEL
You’d see the cows on Hackney Marshes if it wasn’t for the houses in between.

THE PAGE THREE MODEL (sometimes called The Essex Enhancement)
You have two cows.
Like the cows, the milkmaids also have long eyelashes and really big teats.