There was once a Countryman who possessed the most wonderful Goose you can imagine, for every day when he visited the nest, the Goose had laid a beautiful, glittering, golden egg.

The Countryman took the eggs to market and soon began to get rich. But it was not long before he grew impatient with the Goose because she gave him only a single golden egg a day. He was not getting rich fast enough.

Then one day, after he had finished counting his money, the idea came to him that he could improve his profit margins by cutting the Goose’s feed budget, and only cleaning the Goose’s coop once a week instead of daily. Over time, the Countryman’s income soared as the Goose’s working conditions became worse and worse.

The Goose had had enough. The Countryman did nothing to contribute to the production of the golden eggs, but merely owned the barn wherein the eggs were produced! She determined she had one of two options: she could withhold her labour and stop producing golden eggs entirely until her working conditions improved, or she could gather the other farm animals to reclaim the right to their own labour, and end the Countryman’s exploitation for good.

The farm animals organized and constructed a simple but effective guillotine. With fire in their hearts, they grabbed the Countryman and provided him the just reward for his tyranny.

The farm animals lived in cooperative comfort forever after.