Then

Socialism: You have two cows, the government gives one to your neighbor.

Communism: You have two cows. You give them to the Government, you milk them for everyone, and the Government then gives you some milk.

Marxism: You have two cows, the cows take over the farm and milk you.

Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both cows and sells you the milk.

Nazism: If you have two cows, swelling with national pride, the government shoots you and they ride the cows into battle.

FDRism: If you have two cows, the government hires one cow to milk the other, putting you out of work.

JFKism: If you have two cows, the government vows to put cows underwater within a decade.

LBJism: If you have two cows, at odds over milking procedures at a distant farm, the government sends the cows into battle.

Nixonism: If you have two cows, the government wiretaps the cattle gate to obtain bovine secrets.

Carterism: If you have two cows, the government prohibits the white cow from disagreeing with the black cow.

Reaganism: If you have two cows, the government spends $100 billion to make your cows stealthy.

Clintonism: If you have two cows, the government eschews machines and secretly milks your cows by hand.

Bushism: If you have two cows, noting the superior marbling in right rump roasts over left rump roasts, government deciders mandate 'no cow left behind'.

Capitalism (unfettered): If you have two cows, you sell one and buy a bull.

Capitalism (fettered): If you have two cows, the government requires you to sell your cows on credit to neighbors who can't afford them, and guarantees the loans. All of the new cow owners default, but they keep the cows and the taxpayer covers the loans. The government criticizes your 'predatory tactics' and 'unfettered markets', vowing to 'replace selfishness and greed with responsibility and fairness' (see Obamaism).

Obamaism: If you have two cows, the government gives one to your neighbor and one to a commercial farm. You pay capital gains tax on the 'sale' and new cow owners get a tax credit for buying feed. With the new farm bill, your neighbor also receives government subsidies if they don't milk the cow. But now you have to buy milk and beef and you pay much higher prices due to the shortage. Sadly, the milk and beef aren't as healthy because government regulations require commercial farms to inject the cows with antibiotics and growth hormones, making you sick. You can't seek medical care because you couldn't afford to keep your health insurance when your cows were taken, and the government won't cover you because, being self-employed, you don't qualify as an 'at-risk' individual. Lacking insurance, the government fines you for your 'selfish failure to contribute'. Clearly a malcontent, your name is added to a 'watch list'.

Also:

Russian company: You have two cows. You drink some vodka and count them again. You have five cows. The Russian Mafia shows up and takes however many cows you have.

Californian company: You have a million cows. Most of them are illegals.

Sources: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_have_two_cows

http://www.two-cows.net/if_you_have_two_cows.html

http://www.enotes.com/topic/You_have_two_cows

Now

The cynical dairy farmer's guide to the Middle East

How a couple of cows explain a changing region: equal opportunity offender edition.

In the early years of the Cold War, in an effort to simplify -- and parody -- various political ideologies and philosophies, irreverent wits, in the spirit of George Orwell, went back to the farm. No one really knows how the two-cow joke known as "Parable of the Isms" came about, but most students of Political Science 101 have likely come across some variation of the following definitions:

Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one of them and gives it to your neighbor.

Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and provides you with milk.

Nazism: You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes the cows.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Over the years, the parables gradually expanded, using the two-cow joke to explain everything from French unions (You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.) to the Republican Party (You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So what?). While in its original iteration the cows were a metaphor for currency, capital, and property, they later began to take on different meanings.

Today, the Middle East has replaced the Cold War as America's primary foreign-policy preoccupation. As opposed to the seemingly ideologically homogenous communist bloc, however, the 22 diverse countries that compose the modern Middle East are still confusing to most Americans. Why can't the Israeli and Palestinians stop fighting already? What's the difference between Libya and Lebanon again?

Herewith then is a satirical effort to simplify the essence of Middle Eastern governments so that, in the immortal words of George W. Bush, "the boys in Lubbock" can read it. And, rather than symbolizing property, the cows here symbolize people, which -- funny enough -- is how most Middle Eastern regimes have traditionally viewed their populations.

Saudi Arabia
You have two cows with endless reserves of milk. Gorge them with grass, prevent them from interacting with bulls, and import South Asians to milk them.

Iran
You have two cows. You interrogate them until they concede they are Zionist agents. You send their milk to southern Lebanon and Gaza, or render it into highly enriched cream. International sanctions prevent your milk from being bought on the open market.

Syria
You have five cows, one of whom is an Alawite. Feed the Alawite cow well; beat the non-Alawite cows. Use the milk to finance your wife's shopping sprees in London.

Lebanon
You have two cows. Syria claims ownership over them. You take them abroad and start successful cattle farms in Africa, Australia, and Latin America. You send the proceeds back home so your relatives can afford cosmetic surgery and Mercedes-Benzes.

Hezbollah
You have no cows. During breaks from milking on the teat of the Iranian cow you call for Israel's annihilation.

Iraq
You have three cows: one Sunni, one Shiite, and one Kurd. The first is milked by Saudi Arabia, the second by Iran, and the third smuggles its milk abroad. The United States picks up the manure.

Bahrain
You have three cows: two Shiites and one Sunni. Invite Saudi Arabia to come kill a Shiite cow and import another Sunni cow.

Yemen
You have two cows. Feed them khat instead of grass and neglect to milk them. Watch them fight each other.

Hosni Mubarak's Egypt
You have 10 cows. Neglect to tend to them, but prevent them from fighting Israel in order to get milk from America.

Post-Mubarak Egypt
You have 10 cows who think they now own the farm. There's still no milk.

Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's Tunisia
You have two cows. Beat them regularly and use the milk money for your wife's shopping sprees in Paris. When the cows revolt, retire to Saudi Arabia.

Post-Ben Ali Tunisia
See post-Mubarak Egypt.

Libya
You have two cows. You wish they were camels. Feed them only your words of wisdom and kill them if they dare moo.

Turkey
You have two cows and one sheep. You claim that the sheep is really a "mountain cow."

Qatar
You have one cow that has hundreds of udders. You use the limitless milk money to set up a television channel that broadcasts the other cows in the region being milked (except Saudi Arabia's).

United Arab Emirates
You have two cows. You bring in Filipino nannies, South Asian laborers, and Russian prostitutes to make sure they're well taken care of. Sell the milk to build the world's biggest shopping mall.

Jordan
You have one cow, surrounded by wolves. Pretend that it's a magic cow that has the power to pacify wild animals, and then ask America for milk.

Palestine
You had two cows that were lost decades ago. Lament them.

Israel
You have two bulls. Pretend they are helpless calves.

Source: Foreign Policy
Credits: Karim Sadjadpour
Dated: 2011-06-15

From The Comments (with some editing and composition)

Afghanistan

You have a dragon and a dozen jackals. The jackals pretend like they're fighting the dragon and keep begging the rest of the world for cows which quickly die of neglect and are then consumed by the jackals. The dragon keeps eating the people.

Algeria

You have two cows. They keep losing at cow football.

Bangladesh

You have two cows, one is a "radical Islamist" and other a "leftist Indian stooge". At any given time you can milk only one, while the other has to be put in jail. Every ten years, army takes over for a year or two and puts both in jail.

Bhutan

You have half a cow, which India feeds, milks and watches over, while you are allowed to pretend to be an independent country.

China

You have 10 cows. They produce so much milk that it overwhelms the world's market and US complains. US retaliate with QE and QE2 and the cows start to revolt because the grass is getting more expensive and they have to produce more milk.

China

You have two cows. You use the profits from their milk to buy a poultry farm, a ranch, a stable, a milk processing factory and a large fast food chain. Then you use profits from all those ventures to monitor internet usage of the cows.

Hungary

You have two cows. So does your neighbor. One of your cows die. You kill one of the neighbor's cows because he shouldn't be better off than you.

India

You have five cows. The Government nationalizes all of them and refuses to milk them. Under pressure from IMF and World Bank, two are sold to the richest 1% who milk them and add water to double the profits, two are embezzled by the government officials and one held by government as strategic reserve that it continues to refuse to milk. Meanwhile the public continues to worship them and beef remains banned in the country.

Iranian Exiles

You have two cows, one of them walked by a mosque in Shiraz when it was five years old and today is an Iran and Islam expert in the US, the other dyed itself blond, wears blue contacts, got a nose job and insists on being called "Persian".

Iranian Exiles

You have two cows, one of them is an MI6 agent the other gets fooled by the Revolutionary Guard double agent bull into thinking that there are thousands of guards waiting to overthrow the government in Iran.

Iranian Exiles

You have two cows, one them is a washed up singer who is banking on the green movement to raise her CD sales, the other is just washed up.

Israel

You have no cows. You claim the Palestinian cows as your "holy cows"and offer the Palestenians cow dung as compensation. You get money from America, to build holy cow sheds, some of which you provide to the US congress in exchange for protecting your right to keep the cows, although you know that that's a bunch of bull.

Israel

You have two cows that move into the Palestine where they have twenty calves. You claim the pasture and land of the Palestinian cows as your own, you justify this because an evil butcher killed 100 of your cows back home. When you force the Palestinian cows out of their pasture, you continue to brutally milk them for all they have and you beat them regularly. When a farmer from another country rightfully criticizes you for this inhumane action, you call them an anti-cowite.

Israel

Special God-chosen Israeli cows took a dump in the desert 3000 years ago.
Come in 60 years ago and torch the farm, kick and terrorize the resident cows out and instal European, Russian, American and Ethiopian cows in their place.

Israel

You only have one cow but it's sacred. You send it to America where it's worshiped and suddenly you have more of everything including milk than you can possibly use so you begin selling the surplus to China.

Japan

You have 2 cows. They were once feared for their milk. Now they are getting on in age, and after their prime ministers are unable to milk them much, they are abandoned.

Jordan

You have 3 cows and a camel. The camel is controlling everything in the country while the cows are providing all the milk.

Kuwait

You have two cows that produce the milk of ten cows. Iraq wants your cows. America also wants your cows, but is less obvious about it. Eventually, you still have two cows, but their grazing land is burnt away.

Morocco

You have four cows. One is Arab and three are Amazigh. For some reason, you only just noticed the Amazigh ones.

Nepal

You have one cow and fifteen dairy farmers. The cow stands by idly while the farmers fail to decide whether to make cheese or yogurt or ice cream or butter from the milk.

Oman

You have two Ibadi cows. No one has any idea what the hell an Ibadi is. A lot like America's Middle Eastern policy; Ibadi translates as Sunni, Wahabi, and Shia actually. America knows nothing, and it don't matter. The war on terror feels good and pays better.

Pakistan

You have two cows. You give one to army and another to radical Islamist, who use the milk to buy new weapons to "protect the country" from India. Meanwhile people go without milk.

Saudi Arabia

You have one bull and one cow. Only the cow is not allowed to drive.

Sri Lanka

You have two cows. One is killed as a collateral damage in an air strike while the other continues to have the highest education and health rates in the region.

Pakistan

A much better one suggested by a friend: You have two cows. You put them in front of your army on the Indo-Pak border because everyone knows Hindus can't kill cows.

Russia

Russia is a big cow. Moscow is the milkman.

USA

You have 10 cows and believe, without any real basis, that your cows are the biggest and the best in the world at everything. Threaten to destroy the fields, cows and milk of anyone who dares disagree with you and invade anyone who actually does have better cows

USA

You have one bull and one cow. The bull has mad cow disease and is continually charging anything that moves. The cow is lesbian and thinks it's the goat's mate and is continually head butting the bull to keep it away from the goat.
Meanwhile the cow is beginning to show signs of mad cow disease too and has begun charging anything that moves while the bull has such an advanced stage of the disease that it's begun wandering around drunkenly in circles.

USA

You claim to have 100 cows, but they really belong to China. You think you have the right to protect all the Cows in the world because you 'think' your the best farmer. So kill, bomb, intimidate and sanction any other farmer to keep all cows safe - but really your just a greedy, arrogant and mad-cow disease infected farmer.

New York City

You are a cow. The biggest, strongest, fastest cow in your family. Your dumb, fat-ass cow relatives come from around the country to visit you and are afraid to walk around your neighborhood for fear of being eaten, which always happens to cows on TV.

Capitalism

Capitalism: You have 2 cows. Bovine, Inc sues you claiming they already have a patent on cows. Udder Corp sues you claiming they have trademarked the word 'Cow' and you are not allowed to even say that word without written permission from their lawyers. You have to sell both cows to pay for the lawyers to defend yourself.

Capitalism in PRACTICE

You and 98 other people in your community tend to a large herd of cows, getting up at 6am to milk them, feed them a few times a day, and stay with them the whole day to make sure they're safe and sound, but they're not your cows; all the cows belong to ONE guy who doesn't tend to cows because he's entitled to all proceeds coming out of the cows and only gives you a small pittance for your work. The one guy's day-to-day work consists of telling you how to care for the cows better for less money, and finding ways for fewer people to tend to more cows.

The guy that owns the cows will then sell you the milk and beef you yourself have produced at a huge profit. You are expected to tend to more cows every year in order to continually raise his profits, and are told that you might one day get more money for it if profits raise by a high-enough margin, but more money never arrives; the guy will instead lower your wages because his profits haven't been as good as he had been hoping for while simultaneously raising his own wages because he did make a profit after all.

If you can't afford as much milk and beef as you did last year because you receive less money, he will lower your wages again and make the milk more expensive because his profits are threatening to grow by a smaller margin than they did in the year before because you are drinking less milk and eating less beef.

The guy also spends a lesser share of every dollar he earns in taxes because he owns all the cows and is therefore a really important person; who would own all the cows, after all, if he wasn't there to own them?

If you don't understand why you spend your whole life tending to the cows just to be able to stay alive and simultaneously growing the fortunes of that one guy who has never milked, fed or slaughtered a cow in his life, he will publically call you a socialist free-loader and the other 98 people tending the cows with you will throw manure at you because they are hoping to maybe, if everything goes well, one day have enough money saved up to buy one cow and become just like the one guy albeit in a different community. None of them knows anyone who actually ever did buy a cow and started his own herd, but they won't have anyone, least of all a socialist free-loader, tell them that they won't ever have any cows of their own.

If the guy owning all the cows is old and wise, he will run for the office of president or senator in order to make new laws that will make it easier for him to make bigger profits and avoid sharing them in the future.
Many former presidents and senators, when they're out of office, also go and buy herds of cows because they have learned that they're a great way to make big profits and avoid sharing them.

Foreign Policy Experts

You have two cows. They don't give any real milk, but they are extremely well fed because they convince you they are smarter than you and all the other cows.