A claim alleging that the longtime "Ask Ann Landers" newspaper advice column once explained political ideologies — referred to as "isms," such as fascism and socialism — using cows as an analogy has circulated online for years, including in the summer of 2025.
Users sharing the claim on social media sites like X (archived), Facebook (archived), LinkedIn (archived) and Reddit included a purported newspaper clipping of a column that featured a question from a teacher who was teaching George Orwell's novel "1984" in her classroom.
The teacher allegedly wrote:
I am having a difficult time explaining communism, socialism and fascism to my students without giving a full-blown, time-consuming history lesson. I recall you printed a humorous column some time ago explaining these concepts using cows as examples. Will you please print it again for my students?
The alleged response read in part:
Socialism: You have two cows. Give one cow to your neighbor.
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.
Some social media users additionally claimed that Landers came up with the analogy herself.
Ann Landers easily explains the differences between socialism, Communism and Capitalism in a very simple form, using 2 cows ? as an example!
Worth the read below! ? ? pic.twitter.com/7iSxhzRxm1— James Pleickhardt (@JamesPleickhar2) August 17, 2024
The rumor that "Ask Ann Landers" once featured a column explaining political ideologies using cows as an example is true — although she did not personally come up with the analogy.
The particular column in question ran Dec. 27, 2001, and can be seen in the archives of major newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times as well as smaller papers like the Star-Herald from Scottsbluff, Nebraska.
(The Star-Herald, Dec. 27, 2001)
The final line of Landers' response was not present in the claims shared online. It read, "Surrealism: You have two giraffes. The government makes you take harmonica lessons."
In the column itself, Landers referred to her response as "an 'oldie' but a 'goldie,'" indicating she may have published it in a previous column, although we have not yet been able to track down an earlier version signed by Landers.
However, the analogy, sometimes called the "Parable of the Isms," has appeared in various forms since at least the 1930s. The origin of the analogy was unclear; a 1944 article in The Modern Language Journal credited it to "a political campaign in Chicago some years ago."
"Ask Ann Landers" began as a column for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1943, years after the analogy began circulating. Its original author, Ruth Crowley, died in 1955. Eppie Lederer took over the column in 1955, where it continued in the Chicago Sun-Times and in syndication in over 1,200 newspapers.
In 1987, Lederer moved the column to the Chicago Tribune, where it remained until her death in 2002. The final "Ask Ann Landers" was published in the Chicago Tribune on June 22, 2002, the day of Lederer's death.
While the newspaper clipping shared in some of the claims showed a handwritten date of Dec. 4, 2002, keen-eyed readers will note that date is nearly six months after Lederer's death.
However, an "Ask Ann Landers" column published in Carlisle, Pennsylvania's The Sentinel on Dec. 4, 2002, featured an editor's note that read: "Hundreds of Ann Landers' loyal readers have requested that newspapers continue to publish her columns of the past 47 years. These letters originally appeared in 1998."
The cow analogy in question was not among those letters, but it's possible it appeared on the same date in a similar retrospective in another paper, prompting a reader to cut out the clipping and write that date on it.
An additional fun fact: Lederer's twin sister, Pauline Phillips, was the author behind the similarly popular and influential advice column "Dear Abby."