The “Two Cows Theory of Political and Ecomomic Systems”

Intro:  In  J. Budziszewski’s book, How to Stay Christian in College, the author quotes what I reproduce here.  Now that we are in the presidential season (at times the silly season, ahh, but such are we mortals!), this tongue-in-cheek summation of various forms of government is concise and on target.  And a reminder:  the Lord’s Church, Christ’s Body, has lived under all the forms below! After this an addition by me and a good quote from  Mr. Budziszewski’s book regarding government.

Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

Bureaucracy. You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

Communism., You have two cows. The government takes all the milk.

Counterculture: Wow, dude, there’s like … these two cows, man. You got to have some of this milk.

I would add to the last one, with the “occupy” silliness ocurring:  “You got to have this milk while we beat our drums as the poor oppressed minority of America while texting each other and smoke a joint and get on camera.”

Mr. Budziszewski’s cites the Two Cows Theory under the “Liberal Myth” (he has conservative ones as well!) that, “The job of government is to reform everything” and he comments:

Yes, government is for punishing those who do wrong and honoring those who do right (1 Peter 2:14). For punishing it uses courts, jails, and armies, and for praising it has things like public memorials and medals of honor. This job of punishing and honoring is called upholding public justice. In this sinful world, it’s inevitable that many good things that should happen don’t, and that many bad things that shouldn’t happen do. Because government is so powerful, many college students think it can be used to make all the good things happen and stop all the bad things from happening. To do this they want government to horn in on the affairs of the other social institutions, like family and church. Misusing words, they call that upholding public justice. The sad thing is that when government tries to take on jobs that aren’t its own, it only makes things worse.

In Lutheran theology, I think he has rightly distinguished the two kingdoms.