Political Compass

[Nemesis]

I've said this before, and I'll say it again - any system that discriminates against a part of the population cannot claim to be operating in the name of justice for all.

I prefer capitalism too over any other system that has been put into practice, but you really shouldn’t, and indeed can’t, use the word “discriminates” in a pejorative sense when comparing economic systems. All economic systems discriminate, and discrimination is the essence of all economics. Period.

 

[Delance]

I don't think so. A libertariam economiacal system (down and right in the compass) should have no discrimination.

One thing about the compass: We must wonder if there is such a thing as a libertarian left-wing economic system. In order to produce the result of a "left-wing" economic system, you must exercise a lot of authority. The more to the left, the stronger (and bigger) the government. If you don't control the economy, and you allow people to do what they want, you get to a "right wing" economic system. That quadrant of the compass is misleading.

 

[Quarto]

I prefer capitalism too over any other system that has been put into practice, but you really shouldn’t, and indeed can’t, use the word “discriminates” in a pejorative sense when comparing economic systems. All economic systems discriminate, and discrimination is the essence of all economics. Period.

Not exactly. In socialism, discrimination is sanctioned by law - anyone who earns more money than he needs (according to the government) is punished by bigger taxes. In capitalism, you certainly do still have discrimination (e.g., if I owned a computer game company, my hiring policies would openly discriminate against the computer-illiterate), but in face of the law, everyone's equal.

 

[Delance]

That's not "discrimination" in the bad way. You like hot dogs, but you don't like hamburgers. So, if you buy a hot dog, you are "discriminating" against people who sell hamburgers. In socialism, the government would take your money by force, keep 80%, buy an overpriced hamburger you don't like and force you to eat it.

 

[Nemesis]

I don't think so. A libertariam economiacal system (down and right in the compass) should have no discrimination.

I’m sorry . . . “should”? Don’t you mean . . . “does”? You seem . . . “uncertain”. But in fact you’re using a libertarian’s definition of “discrimination”, which is like an egalitarian saying a “libertarian economical system” does have discrimination.

Look, if you seriously want to compare two rival “paradigms”, you can’t fairly do it by looking at one from inside the other.

In socialism, discrimination is sanctioned by law - anyone who earns more money than he needs (according to the government) is punished by bigger taxes.

And you’re doing the same, which is like the socialist saying that in capitalism, discrimination is sanctioned by law – anyone who earns less money than he (really) needs is punished (and if he has a family, then any “innocent” children as well) by being forced to live in poverty.

In capitalism, you certainly do still have discrimination (e.g., if I owned a computer game company, my hiring policies would openly discriminate against the computer-illiterate) . . .

Oh please, your entire life in that business would be spent practicing discrimination galore, from the people you hire, fire, or otherwise do business with, the salaries you pay, the promotions you grant, the locations you choose (for expansion or–oh my!–relocation), to the eventual selling-out or shutting-down you plan. And within a not-all-that-narrow range, you can be as pleasant or unpleasant, high-minded or petty, appreciative or demeaning, fair or unfair as you want to be.

. . . but in face of the law, everyone's equal.

Yes, speaking as an American and a capitalist, it’s good to know there are still people in the world who swallow our propaganda whole. Now if we can just figure out a better way to brainwash all of our pesky teenagers who keep whining about wanting to vote, drink, drive, and have sex whenever and wherever they want. Come to think of it, we also have more than a few adults, from immigrants to women to gays to blacks, and golly!, one could go on–running around with their own set of “gripes”, especially when it comes to that old bugaboo “equal opportunity”. Go figure, right? (By-the-by, George Washington, bless his soul, tried to tell Jefferson, Adams, and especially Madison that all this “freedom” and “equality” hype would come back to haunt us one day, and boy was he right–though I suppose in all fairness we should see the Civil War as an earlier wake-up call in that way, so to speak.)

In all seriousness, I’m all for giving democracy and capitalism “three cheers”, maybe more, but I will never, ever fall in love with them. (Nor should anyone.)

That's not "discrimination" in the bad way.

Tell that to the people who don’t get hired, are fired, or lose their investment because of an economic downturn. All economic systems can and do discriminate at some point in some way. And each system further defines which sorts of possible “discriminations” will be “tolerated” and which “not”. But you get nowhere employing capitalism’s definitions to attack socialism, and vice versa. (And that’s because, among other reasons, those definitions are not the real crux of disagreement.)

 

[Delance]

That unintelligible propaganda doesn't even make sense. But it does make a good example. Here a couple of links for everyone to read:

Why Are Universities Dominated by the Left?

The Opium of the Professors

Brazil could be a lot wealthier, but it's made poor by decades of interventionism/socialism policies in various shapes and forms. Even tough the country has been from the "left" to the "right" multiple times since the declaration of the Republic in 1888 until now, everything is pretty much the same. Big government, interventionism, socialism, a lot of bureaucracy, high taxes, high interest rates and low economic freedom give Brazil one of the worst income distributions of the world. And what do people think is needed to make it better? Bigger government, more interventionism, higher taxes, a lot more bureaucracy, and even less economic freedom. And then they wonder why it doesn't work.

 

[Quarto]

Look, if you seriously want to compare two rival “paradigms”, you can’t fairly do it by looking at one from inside the other.

How on Earth else could I do it? If I wanted to compare two rival shirts, one of the tests I'd apply would be to try them on.

Anyway, let me put it this way. How would the world react if some country, for example, the UK, decided to apply 20% income taxes on citizens of English origins, 50% income taxes on citizens of Scottish and Irish origins, and 80% taxes on citizens of all other origins? Because this is precisely what socialism does, except that it swaps ethnicity with people's social position. If you cannot see the difference between this and the kind of discrimination that occurs in a capitalist state which guarantees equal rights for all, you've got a problem.

Yes, speaking as an American and a capitalist, it’s good to know there are still people in the world who swallow our propaganda whole.

Sooooo... if I happen to support capitalism, I must be a victim of American propaganda? Seems to me that in order to believe that, you'd have to be a propaganda victim yourself...

 

[Delance]

To try to help people situate the economic axis of the compass in the world, here’s the economic compass of the world.

The 2004 Index of Economic Freedom

Here is is:

Right: (FREE)
Singapore
New Zealand
Luxembourg
Ireland
Estonia
United Kingdom
Denmark
Switzerland
United States
Australia
Sweden
Chile
Cyprus
Finland
Canada

Center-Right: (MOSTLY FREE)
Iceland
Germany
Netherlands
Austria
Bahrain
Belgium
Lithuania
El Salvador
Bahamas
Italy
Spain
Norway
Israel
Latvia
Portugal
Czech Republic
Barbados
Taiwan
Slovak Republic, The
Trinidad and Tobago
Malta
Japan
Botswana
Uruguay
Bolivia
Hungary
United Arab Emirates
Armenia
France
Belize
Korea, South
Kuwait
Uganda
Costa Rica
Jordan
Slovenia
South Africa
Greece
Oman
Jamaica
Poland
Panama
Peru
Cape Verde
Qatar
Thailand
Cambodia
Mexico
Mongolia
Morocco
Mauritania
Nicaragua
Tunisia
Namibia
Mauritius

Center-Left: (MOSTLY UNFREE)
Senegal
Macedonia
Philippines, The
Saudi Arabia
Fiji
Sri Lanka
Bulgaria
Moldova
Albania
Brazil
Croatia
Colombia
Guyana
Lebanon
Madagascar
Guatemala
Malaysia
Ivory Coast
Swaziland
Georgia
Djibouti
Guinea
Kenya
Burkina Faso
Egypt
Mozambique
Tanzania
Bosnia
Algeria
Ethiopia
Mali
Rwanda
Central African Republic
Azerbaijan
Paraguay
Turkey
Ghana
Pakistan
Gabon
Niger
Benin
Malawi
Russia
Argentina
Ukraine
Lesotho
Zambia
Honduras
India
Nepal
Chad
Gambia, The
Ecuador
Cameroon
China
Romania
Equatorial Guinea
Bangladesh
Kazakhstan
Yemen
Sierra Leone
Togo
Indonesia
Haiti
Syria
Guinea Bissau
Vietnam
Nigeria
Suriname

Left: (REPRESSED)
Cuba
Belarus
Tajikistan
Venezuela
Iran
Uzbekistan
Turkmenistan
Laos
Burma
Zimbabwe
Libya
Korea, North

The more to the left, the smaller the score on the economic axis. The more to the right, the higher the score.

 

[Nemesis]

That unintelligible propaganda doesn't even make sense.

So, in addition to being “unintelligible”, what I said didn’t “even make sense”? That’s quite a criticism, especially since, despite it, you apparently thought you understood enough of what I said to accuse me of “propaganda”. But propaganda for what? Well now, that, you don’t venture to say (which, all in all, I have to say is par for the course). But you do drop two links about so-called leftist views dominating universities. Am I, by any chance, in favor of universities having one-sided world views? No, I’m not, which carries a double irony since my comments, fairly read, were the charge that to attack one economic system via the values or “language” of another was improperly one-sided.

By the way, while I find much to agree with regarding Feser’s description of intellectual fault lines, his intimation of what is and is not emphasized in the way of philosophy at a school like Princeton is a load of bull (I assure you, Plato, Aristotle, Locke, and the other standard-bearers of traditional Western culture are quite happy there), and so I have to conclude that what he’s really advocating is that universities should be dominated by only a “rightist” perspective, which of course offends me, not because it’s rightist, but again one-sided.

How on Earth else could I do it? If I wanted to compare two rival shirts, one of the tests I'd apply would be to try them on.

Well, what most people do, which is to compare them side-by-side, or wear one and judge how it looks, then wear the other and judge how it looks. But I would be very much surprised that you would seek to judge how one looked only by virtue of your wearing the other, which is nonsensical on its face, the height of rationalization, and the only correct analogy to what I said.

Anyway, let me put it this way. How would the world react if some country, for example, the UK, decided to apply 20% income taxes on citizens of English origins, 50% income taxes on citizens of Scottish and Irish origins, and 80% taxes on citizens of all other origins? Because this is precisely what socialism does, except that it swaps ethnicity with people's social position. If you cannot see the difference between this and the kind of discrimination that occurs in a capitalist state which guarantees equal rights for all, you've got a problem.

Again, you speak as the capitalist who finds socialism offensive. What a surprise. And yes, each system has its particular kinds of discrimination, and yes, personally, I much prefer capitalism. But merely citing the horrors that befall a given group or class in a socialist system, which you do here, counts only as a reason for rejecting socialism. (Much like trying on a shirt but not liking its look.) The question is: will each of two people, one obsessed with the horrors of the rich under socialism and therefore rejecting socialism, the other obsessed with the horrors of impoverished children under capitalism and therefore rejecting capitalism, ever convince the other to switch fixations? No, because they’re already committed and their respective “reasons” have no common ground. The real reasons for choosing one economic system over another reside elsewhere than in hopelessly pejorative, subjective, or favorite definitions of “discrimination”, which is the one and only point I have sought to make. (Now did you really read that last sentence? Again, that’s all I’ve been talking about, and it surprises me, given all the other intelligent points you’ve made in this thread, that you would have any disagreement on this at all.)

Sooooo... if I happen to support capitalism, I must be a victim of American propaganda? Seems to me that in order to believe that, you'd have to be a propaganda victim yourself...

No, my remark pertained to your comment implying that equality under the law was some sort of a given in a capitalist system, which it is not, or otherwise had a practical inevitability, which it does not. (Of course, maybe it was not your intention to imply that, though your obviously off-the-mark response again implies that it was.)

 

[cff]

1/2 - nope - still not 1 post

Limited liability companies are a different story, of course, and they will always require more paperwork, precisely to limit such abuse.

I was talking about just that type - limited liability ones.

Minimum wages? Right - if someone has a choice between no work and work below minimum wages, he'll choose the latter, even if he and his employer must break the law to do so.

How many employers do you think would risk that?

Illegal employment is a huge problem (people earning a living, a problem?!) here in Poland, precisely because it's cheaper to hire someone at lower wages and without social security.

Ditto. Actually there was a recent study here that said in pretty clear words that "we could not keep our life standard if not for illegal work".
Obviously this is a major problem and clearly indicates that the taxes are WAY too high. What makes it even worse is of course that they raise the tax to get more just to push more people to illegal work in order to not pay taxes. Which raises the tax...
However practically all of the illegal work is alongside a legal one so my comment above "How many employers do you think would risk that?" is still valid. Illegal work for most parts only works in the private sector. A company has a much harder time disguising it. Exceptions are that fraudulent limited liability ones...

Monopolies: We're going round in circles here - I've already said that I am not in favour of eliminating anti-monopoly laws, and neither are other right-wingers. If anything, the right-wing is actually MORE anti-monopoly than the left-wing.

A claim I have yet to see in praxis.

Socialists always talk about how harmful monopolies are, but then for some reason insist that if the government is the monopoly owner, then everything's all right, when in fact, government monopolies are even WORSE than private monopolies, regardless of the type of service they offer.

Now that isn't true. And if only for one point: security. Lets get back to public healthcare for a moment. Or even better to the pension system.
I'd happily agree that private systems based on the capital market work better then the "young pay for the old pyramid thing" that we got now. Even if the stock market crashes that risk is calculable (it would be a different topic to discuss how to minimize the risk which the insurances don't seem to do, but anyhow).

Now obvously that rates would even improve by the merciless competition between that insurances, right? They would shift to more risky forms of investment, but would have to guarantee you that your money is save right? Some would be driven out of business because they could not compete, but that is a good thing, right? Everyone who isn't capable to compete shouldn't be there anyhow.

There is just one problem. What do you do if your provider for your private pension goes bankrupt? Your money is gone. Poof - thats it. Sure you can sue just like the millions of other people ripped off. Maybe you'll even win and get 10% back. Wohoo...

Ah sure, you'll say - but the insurances are insured themself?
Ooops - I forgot. Noone should be forced to be insured at all. So I assume that includes insurances. So in order to lower the prices an improve the payout they won't be. And lets even assume for a moment they are insured. If they didn't for some reason make a big mistake (in which case their insurance wouldn't pay anyhow) then that master insurance would be bankrupt as well as all private pension companies would have the same losses and that couldn't be covered.

So, if you want to prove that eliminating social security wouldn't decrease unemployment, you're going to have to come up with a point that I haven't already addressed .

That is a stupid challenge. Without doubt there would be more work initially. But less payment. And given enough time more polarisation.

Except that I've explained that this isn't true, because capitalists are rational, and know they must offer their employees reasonable wages, if only to ensure that their employees, aka consumers, can buy their products.

That is the same as if I claim that communists are rational and noone will abuse his power to get richer and there won't be any corruption if only to ensure that there won't be a revolution.
In other words BULLSHIT. "Let the others pay them the high wages so they buy MY products" - that is reality.

Of course, setting up a company in China is a neat alternative... there, I can pay people less, right? Well, hang on... who's gonna buy my products? Not the Chinese, that's for sure - I don't pay them enough. Well, people in my own country, then. So, I export my products (which increases their pricetag) back to my country. What now, though? The market is constantly shrinking - everyone's moving their companies to China, so the percentage of the population with enough money to buy my goods is falling rapidly. My profits plummet. What do I do? Move my factory to, say, Azerbeijan, and pay the workers there even less, so that I can export my products to China at prices that the Chinese can afford? Great, but everyone will do the same, right? It's an endless downward spiral.

*starts clapping*
I couldn't have described the downfall of capitalism better. The only thing preventing this in the very long run are the capitalists you describe when talking about capitalism. The few ones that responsibly work with the market. But lets be honest - those are few. The majority doesn't think that way.
I'll giev another example - fishing. Have a look at the ammount of fish in the oceans. Its shrinking faster and faster BECAUSE capitalists only care for todays profit. Hey - it might even be an advantage to them that the goods get more rare - after all rare equals higher prices equals more profit. Until the day nothing is left.

Zoom back to the point when I was thinking about moving my factory to China. What if try to pay local workers instead? Provided that these workers don't have an exorbitant pricetag (which they do, right now - again, socialism is the cause of the great industrial shift to China!), I can still make a profit.

Albeit maybe only 10% of what my competitor makes. That very same competitior that will force me to go to China or buy me out in 5 years.

And I get an added bonus - the people working for me are wealthier and probably better educated than the Chinese (no offence to the Chinese - but that's why they're cheaper, after all).

Not true.
Lets shift away from China and toward India. And lets move to the computer industry. Their experts don't have to hide from ours education wise. They still work for far less. And while they might not be wealthy by our standards they are wealthy by theirs. Which leads to the rather paradox situation that they don't want to work here for 5 times as much, because they already have all they need.

It's easier to fill managerial positions, because I can promote my own people - thus boosting everyone's productivity, employee loyalty, and morale in general.

Hardly ever done. Managerial positions (especially higher ones) are seldom filled by promotion. Rather you get someone from another company. If only to reduce the tensions between former equals and now boss - worker relations.
Actually I only see these type of promotions from worker to CEO really only in governmental institutions.

Consequently, the quality of my products goes up. And I still have a market. Heh, better - because the owners of those other companies that moved to China now prefer to buy my high quality products than to use their own shoddy "Made in China" stuff.

As I said don't underestimate the education levels there. Sides education rarely has something todo with quality. Bad quality in our economity is a result of capitalism, not of bad education. It is a measure to increase profits (by lowering cost and by having stuff break earlier and thus force people to pay again). Companies doing low quality aren't doing so because they couldn't do better, but because they want to.

I do not presume to know how many people Earth could support. Maybe there is no definite limit, and it's just a matter of constantly finding new methods to boost our production. Or maybe there is indeed a limit, and we'll reach it a hundred years from now. No point worrying about that in advance

Capitalist thinking as its best. I'll take what I can - let my children pay for my sins.

A dreadful thing, that. Don't you wish the governments at the end of the 19th century were more socialist, so that they could have spent millions of taxpayer dollars protecting horse-drawn carriage manufacturers from bankruptcy?

You know this was not my point. The poitn was that there hadn't been significantly more jobs because of the car. Because as that jobs grew others had to be eliminated. So your claim that new technology equals new jobs is at best parially true. Only a fundamentally new TYPE of innovation would have that effect. Jsut inventing a new transportation or communication form won't.

 

[cff]

2/2, but i got the feelng we are comming to a conclusion on many points

Not true at all. If I have a gram of gold, and I extract another gram of gold from the ground, I now have two grams of gold. Technically, I am just shifting the wealth from the ground to my own hands, but that's a technicality I'm more than happy to ignore.

Now you are comparing apples with oranges. Your what you jsut said has nothing to do with my argument.
A more working comparision would be that you just invented the coin. Now loads of people are employed to create coins from gold. Similar loads of people will be workless that previously assured that gold was valid and that previously calculated the worth of a nugget.

Started with writing and perfected with the internet? So, your definition of 'temporary' is anything that lasts for 6000 years? If it's lasted this long, how do we know it's coming to an end now? Maybe we're only halfway along a curve that goes on for another 6000 years. Or maybe there is no curve at all.

Indeed. 6000 years is only temporary. We are talking on an evolutionary scale here. If you compare 6000 years to the time the homo sapiens exists or actually more accurately to the time that any life exists it is just a split second.
The written word is a leap in evolution as it first granted the ability to 'inherit' information outside of our DNA. But it has its limits as we can see by the increasing specialisation. We are going speedy into the direction of people knowing everything about nothing. Already you need teams of experts in many many fields to even advance science a bit. Again it migth work for another 2000 years, but the curve will 'soon' flatten. You argument that there is no curve is just not valid as we can prove the existance of it from the past. Accumulated wisdom of the human race did increase exponentially form the past to today. The only really valid debate is as to wether it is possible to infinitely continue that exponential growth. Which is IMNSHO quite clearly not the case. But we might extend the period for the end by technical means (implanted CPUs into our brain for example) for quite some longer.

What makes you think we need a very fast individual transportation system? Why not some kind of machine that allows us to build and modify objects at a sub-atomic level, so that we can make bread out of steel?

Ah, but the one doesn't block the other.
What I am coming from are rather simple evolutionary ages.
* Complete control over our immediate surrounding (home)
* Complete control over our planet
* Complete control over our solar system
* ...

Phase one we pretty much ended.
For phase two to be finished one of the prequsistes is a very fast way of transportation for everyone (well actually there would be other options. If I could project myself to any place in the world by VR that could work as well). Also your machine probably is a prequisite as well! As is terraforming. As is world peace. As are others that we might not even have thought of yet.

No, it didn't. Cycles don't MAKE history, they merely try to interpret it, and even that, only in a simplistic manner.

Rigth and right.

For predicting the future, they are worse than useless - as the saying goes, history repeats itself. But we do not study history just because we want to know what to expect - we study history to PREVENT it from repeating.

Also right. But to sick with your example earlier - you say feudalism is basically the same as communism, right?
Now we learnt that feudalism is bad from history. Yet we did invent communism and thus repeating the same pattern.
You are still thinking at a much too precise level regarding these forecasts. I don't say that history has to repeat itself. I claim that society has developped certain patterns that repeat. These patterns in return influence history. While this sounds like it would be the same it really isn't.

I can also re-examine our history for 0 AD (but do I look at the history of the Polish people, or the history of the land we now live in?), and try to understand how it fits this cycle. And it will fit it - there's no doubt about it, because it's just a question of how I interpret things. However - because it's just an interpretation - all it takes is someone's alternative interpretation to disprove this. And that's what I mean by closer analysis.

Ah, but isn't that the challene for all prognosis? Of course it is rather easy to fit your patter onto past events. The real test only comes when you predict something and it turn out to be true. That's why I mentioned the Kontradiev cycles as prime example. They already have been used to predict the future of economics and that predictions had been correct.

However, your diagnosis of the causes (i.e., that capitalism eventually destroys itself) definitely wouldn't be correct, so the fact that your predictions came true would be mere
coincidence.

Yes and no. These types of circles cannot predict events, that is very true. But in the end they indeed predict causes. But the real core causes. You need to have to look at it with a much more open interpretation. One (completely hypothetical) circle could be that every liberal form of economy lasts on average 500 years, then a war occurs, then a non liberal form of economy appears for 200 years, then a war occurs and the cycle ends.
As such ther is no coincidence in the big pattern. There is huge coincidence when you look back at the individual effects for each war. That doesn't invalidate the theory of circles.

As such I 'objectively' know that western capitalism will fail.
However the way it does is pure guesswork by me (maybe you could find another cycle that also predicts this - I dunno). You cannot use my thesis here to invalidate the existance of cycles.

1. The workers in Company A still get 100. They don't give a damn about the employer's expenses - they know very well that the tax is the employer's concern, and so they won't let him take it from their salary. And of course, if the employer took the tax money out of their salary, then your system where only the company pays tax is a fraud, because in fact everyone pays taxes. This is irrelevant to the rest of this example, but I thought it's worth pointing out.

Then it is a fraud in your eyes. It would work however and eliminate any form of double taxation as far as I can see. Which was the goal of our little game here, wasn't it?

2. As usual with income taxes, hundreds of rules allowing this and that to be subtracted from the income tax exist.

Which is stupid in any case IMHO. Rather lower the taxes and eliminate the exceptions. This makes the whole thing more transparent, more fair and it reduces buerocracy and/or general management overhead.

4. Company A now earns 1100, and pays 95 to this additional worker. Theoretically, it should be paying 110 taxes (in which case, it would turn worker B away, because it wouldn't get anything out of it). However, their lawyer finds some loophole that reduces their taxable income back to 1000. So, Company A has gained 5, Worker B has gained 5, and the treasury has lost 10.

Ah, but you assume that there is some loophole. Which is a compeletely different problem existing in all and every system. I would just response: Close the fucking loophole then. The less exceptions, the less loopholes.
If I had to write lawbooks they'd be 1/10 in Size that I can tell you.
But lets for a moment even assume that many of the loopholes make sense - they'd still be a bad idea just because of the problem of rebalancing. I want to change one simple law with taxing. Now suddenly thanks to loopholes I might end with a contary effect. Such tight networks are just plain unmanagable. We learn that from programming - keep stuff in small, independent packages.
Similar I'd demand that there is no cross subvention. Don't dump income tax money into the health or pension system. This only helps to cover governmental fraud. This doesn't mean that things get cheaper or that I want to loose the social system, but at least be as honest as to say ok, these 100 EURO are for the health system, and those 50 are for your pension. Not like it is now: 50 euro health, 20 pension and 40% or so from your taxes at top.

Again, why corrupt people? If you give people a simple system where cheating is not required, they won't cheat. Maybe such a system is impossible, but the closer we get to it, the better.

Ah, but the system is really simple. You are overcompicating it. Its in fact the next most simple thing to a flat tax of X for everyone in my ey.

>>>The whole really boils down to the inverse of VAT like tax which is a proved concept, isn't it?<<<
A proven concept of what exactly? That you can tax people without them noticing they’re being taxed? Well, sure, but why is that a good thing?

No, a proven concept about a fair and working taxation system. And indeed you are right most people would not notice they are taxed at all in that proposed income tax system. *shrug* does it matter however? We aren't talking about the height of taxes, just about the collection method right now.

Capitalism is a system that encourages people to earn money. It doesn't try to be moral or immoral - it ignores morality entirely, and leaves it to the individual (within limits imposed by a just law).

Ah, but didn't you claim that capitalism was more moral?

(which is why, of course, socialists never use the term 'justice', instead calling upon 'social justice'... whatever that may be)

Again - I am not talking about fairness or justice. I am talking about moral and ethics. I am talking about religious values if you want.

 

[cff]

Replying to a couple of posts...

That unintelligible propaganda doesn't even make sense. But it does make a good example. Here a couple of links for everyone to read:
Why Are Universities Dominated by the Left?
The Opium of the Professors

I have to give you one thing - these articles are indeed extremely interesting to read. Of course it is heavily ant-left biased, but the observations made seem to be quite true besides a couple I'd object to. These probably are the result of cultural differences between North America and Europe. I don't share all of the conclusions obviously, but doubt it or not I agree to more parts of it then I'd object to it.

Anyway, let me put it this way. How would the world react if some country, for example, the UK, decided to apply 20% income taxes on citizens of English origins, 50% income taxes on citizens of Scottish and Irish origins, and 80% taxes on citizens of all other origins? Because this is precisely what socialism does, except that it swaps ethnicity with people's social position.

The comparision doesn't hold. This is really just rethorics.
Hey you know what I'd suggest that all babys are just put out into the wild and that the parents shouldn't care for them. After all they have all it needs to take part in the capitalist society. We cannot put the burden of feeding them on the poor parents after all. Maybe some will die - they should have taken better care of themself then or beg for for or something. I really don't care. If there aren't enough surviving that will change. As the economy needs more employees the babys sure will learn to work harder on growing up.

The more to the left, the smaller the score on the economic axis. The more to the right, the higher the score.

Ignopring anthing said so far let me ask one question:
Who did ever say that a maximum on the exonomic axis is the ultimate goal and the best thing to achive?

I'd challenge you to find a similar list sorted by for example level of education or length of life. Not that those are valid measures. Ultimatively the only measure would be a poll the personal feeling of satisfaction of the inhabitants.

Let us for example take a look at countires when it comes to the number of people who CANNOT READ or at least don't get what they read (source. PISA study 2000):

Korea (~1%)
Finland (~2%)
Canada
Japan
Ireland
Australia
Sweden
United Kingdom
Iceland
Spain
France
Austria (~4%)
New Zealand
Italy
Denmark
OECD average (~6%)
Czech Republic
Norway
United States (~7%)
Hungary
Switzerland
Liechtenstein
Belgium
Greece
Poland
Russian federation
Portugal
Germany
Lettland
Luxembourg
Mexico
Brazil (~23%)

See something? The most repressed country in your list - Korea rates BEST here! (was surprised about that myself to be honest)

Now in order to not sound too biased I'll also give you another list:

New Zealand (~19%)
Finland (~18%)
Australia
Canada
United Kingdom
Ireland
United States (~12%)
Belgium
Norway
Sweden
Japan
OECD average (~10%)
Switzerland
Iceland
Germany
Austria (~9%)
France
Denmark
Czech Republic
Poland
Korea (~6%)
Italy
Liechtenstein
Hungary
Greece
Portugal
Spain
Lettland
Russian federation
Luxembourg
Mexico
Brazil (1%)

So what does this one say - well it is the same study, the same scale (reading skills), but this time it is the percentage of people that read A++ so to say. Again Korea is far better then what you'd expect I'd say, but that isn't so much the point as I am not defending Communism either. For me the really important part are 'perfect capitalist' states like the USA. About 7% of peole cannot read properly. On the other end an impressive 12% are listed on the perfect reader scale. Could we again talk about polarisation and equal opportunities here?
Of course there are some countries that are just plain impressive like Finland.

Life Expectancy:
Japan 79.1
Switz. 77.6
Iceland 77.4
Sweden 77.1
Spain 76.6
W. Germ. 75.8
Italy 75.5
Britain 75.3
Israel 75.2
Austria 75.1
U.S. 75.0
Denmark 74.9
Finland 74.8
Malta 74.8
Belgium 74.3
Czech. 71.0
Poland 71.0
Yugo. 71.0
Romania 69.9
U.S.S.R. 69.8

Again the "Center-Right" which is what I propagate (I never took side for "Left" seem to do better then the "Right"

 

[Delance]

See something? The most repressed country in your list - Korea rates BEST here! (was surprised about that myself to be honest)

What Korea is that, north or south?

Again Korea is far better then what you'd expect I'd say, but that isn't so much the point as I am not defending Communism either.

But is it South or North? This kind of data about North Korea probably isn't reliabe or is even available.

For me the really important part are 'perfect capitalist' states like the USA.

USA is not a "perfect capitalist" state however.

That list is about ECONOMIC FREEDOM. Canada, Denmark and Finland are quasi-socialist states on some levels, but they have a lot of economic freedom on another. But is that sustainable?

 

[Delance]

But propaganda for what?

Well, if you don't know that, maybe it worked too well on you.

 

[Quarto]

No, my remark pertained to your comment implying that equality under the law was some sort of a given in a capitalist system, which it is not, or otherwise had a practical inevitability, which it does not. (Of course, maybe it was not your intention to imply that, though your obviously off-the-mark response again implies that it was.)

I never, ever implied this. I don't even understand why you would think that I might have implied this. I mean, of course it goes without saying that you can have a capitalist state commanded by an authoritarian dictator who regularly introduces new laws to oppress ethnic minorities. But this is absolutely, totally, irrelevant. My point has always been that capitalism can exist without discriminatory laws, while socialism cannot - you can have capitalism with equal rights for all, but socialism absolutely precludes such a situation, because unless you have laws granting the poor discriminatory government protection and/or penalising the rich, you do not have socialism. Therefore, regardless of what happens in the real world, capitalism is obviously non-discriminatory, while socialism obviously is discriminatory. Don't bother me with what happens in America or the Authoritarian Right-Wing Democratic Republic of South Antarctica, because I really do not give a damn .

 

[Quarto]

Part 1/2 - alas, still some 3,000 characters over the limit.

The comparision doesn't hold. This is really just rethorics.
Hey you know what I'd suggest that all babys are just put out into the wild and that the parents shouldn't care for them. After all they have all it needs to take part in the capitalist society. We cannot put the burden of feeding them on the poor parents after all. Maybe some will die - they should have taken better care of themself then or beg for for or something. I really don't care. If there aren't enough surviving that will change. As the economy needs more employees the babys sure will learn to work harder on growing up.

Now this is just rhetoric . Two problems with this analogy of yours:
1. By suggesting that there is an analogy between dumping babies in the wild and not providing the poor with social support, you imply that the poor are in fact as helpless and inept as babies. This is obviously false.
2. You imply that capitalism would try to grant equal rights to unequal parties. This is false as well - there is a world of difference between considering all adults to be equals of other adults (and children equals of other children) and considering adults to be equals of children.

Illegal employment: well, that's the trouble, isn't it? You'd think there wouldn't be many employers who would risk that, but oddly enough there are indeed many. This implies that there are major problems with the government-specified conditions for legal employment.

Monopolies: well, how can I prove that, as the president of Poland I would not allow monopolies to exist, if I'm not the president of Poland? In the meantime, however, I can certainly prove that when leftists reach power, they do their best to ensure government monopolies exist, or worse - under the cover of privatisation, they give them away to their friends.

...Which raises the question of security. Do public monopolies truly offer security? As far as history is concerned, governments that exist for longer than a century (maybe even half a century?) have so far been the exception, not the rule. Thus, from the political point of view, giving your money to the government in the hope that when you get old, it will give you this money back, is a dangerous thing to do. History and politics aside, there is also the fact that the past century has conclusively proven beyond any doubt whatsoever that democratically-elected governments, are horrible at managing money. Not only are they inefficient, but they are also inevitably corrupt. For a private company wishing to acquire a part or the totality of a governmental monopoly, it is often just a question of finding the politician's pricetag.

Incidentally, consider that insurances have over five hundred years of history in Europe, and maybe more. It is only in the last century that public insurance has appeared. Now, had the insurance business been risky or not lucrative, there is no way it could have had such a long history. It simply wouldn't have lasted at all - no sane capitalist would persist running a risky business that does not offer any profit. So really, there's no need to worry about merciless competition killing insurance companies.

That is the same as if I claim that communists are rational and noone will abuse his power to get richer and there won't be any corruption if only to ensure that there won't be a revolution.

Absolutely. However, the difference between communism and capitalism is that in communism, the most corrupt somehow always float to the top. In capitalism, quite the opposite - there really is no mercy for the inept, and somebody who abuses his power is likely to lose it because others who do not abuse their power are more effective.

I couldn't have described the downfall of capitalism better. The only thing preventing this in the very long run are the capitalists you describe when talking about capitalism. The few ones that responsibly work with the market. But lets be honest - those are few. The majority doesn't think that way.

So how come there's never been such a total crash in history, then?

I'll giev another example - fishing. Have a look at the ammount of fish in the oceans. Its shrinking faster and faster BECAUSE capitalists only care for todays profit. Hey - it might even be an advantage to them that the goods get more rare - after all rare equals higher prices equals more profit. Until the day nothing is left.

A problem indeed. However, I wouldn't pin the blame on capitalism - rather, on the concept of the corporation, which separates profit from everything else. There's a world of difference between a small fishing company from, say, Ireland, doing everything it can to make a profit while simultaneously realising that if it runs out of fish, it would go bankrupt, and the Norwegian subsidiary of a Japanese corporation the majority stake in which is owned by an American corporation whose majority stockholder is some guy in the middle of Guatemala. Such a corporation is also driven by profit, but there are so many levels of ownership that, to the real owners of the company, the company's policies are pure abstraction - after all, the company is a legal entity all by itself, so if it does something wrong, the owners don't risk very much.

Corporations are certainly something I go back and forth on. On the one hand, the idea of outlawing corporations does seem rather authoritarian, so my first thought is to be against it. On the other hand, however, corporations are definitely harmful, and they certainly are not needed for capitalism (important note: corporations are not intrinsically linked to capitalism, and as I mentioned a few posts ago, if they had the choice, they'd prefer a socialist government). Given that outlawing corporations would not discriminate against anyone, it is an idea I'd at least be willing to consider.

Albeit maybe only 10% of what my competitor makes. That very same competitior that will force me to go to China or buy me out in 5 years.

Clearly not true - you really do not need to search long these days to find a product that's advertised as "hand-made". How can that product be profitable? Surely, it's cheaper to build a factory in China and mass-produce this same product... but then it wouldn't sell!

Hardly ever done. Managerial positions (especially higher ones) are seldom filled by promotion. Rather you get someone from another company.

This is not true - it all depends on the policies of the individual company. It's also interesting to note that businesses LOVE to hire ex-army officers - who had spend their career operating precisely under that merit-grants-promotion system.

Bad quality in our economity is a result of capitalism, not of bad education. It is a measure to increase profits (by lowering cost and by having stuff break earlier and thus force people to pay again). Companies doing low quality aren't doing so because they couldn't do better, but because they want to.

Right, which is why I am now writing to you from socialist Poland using a 56k modem, while people in the US are reading my words using cable, ADSL, or whatever it is that's the newest internet solution right now. Because, after all, their capitalist, profit-oriented internet service providers are just so much worse in quality than our good old socialist governmental monopoly (sorry, ex-governmental ex-monopoly, although the distiction seems to make no difference in reality).

Capitalist thinking as its best. I'll take what I can - let my children pay for my sins.

Not at all. I've explained why I'm not in the least concerned about overpopulation - this is a problem people have faced many times before, and always worked out. It should be added, I suppose, that overpopulation is not a problem now. This being the case, trying to come up with a solution would be extremely counter-productive - when this problem finally comes up, whether it be a century or fifty centuries from now, human capabilities will have moved on, and my solution would no longer be applicable.

Cars and carriages: yes, I know what your point was. You missed half of my point, though - the invention of the car did not merely result in some people switching from carriage-manufacturing to car-manufacturing. It brought about revolutionary changes that dramatically expanded the economy, resulting in a vast increase in job availability. And as you say, cars were just a new form of transport - nothing fundamentally new.

Gold nuggets and the economy: What I said has everything to do with your argument - economy is not a zero-sum game. The growth in one sector of the economy often does result in a reduction in another sector, but these things do not add up.

 

[Quarto]

Part 2/2

The future and development: all this talk about where our development will go sounds a lot like this "end of history" drivel from ten years ago, and indeed many times in the past. Heck, at the end of the 19th century, a very popular thesis was that we had come to the end of development, end of warfare, and in general there would only be peace from now on - because the author simply couldn't imagine why nations would go to war against each other when they had become so civilised. Be a bit more humble - read some early 1900s science-fiction, and see how well their predictions worked out. It is futile to theorise about where we go from here.

Also right. But to sick with your example earlier - you say feudalism is basically the same as communism, right?

I said feudalism was a form of socialism (not communism!), but I certainly never suggested that there is only one socialism. The socialism we have right now is both remarkably similar and remarkably different from feudalism.

Cycles: no, no, no. Cycles do not predict causes. In fact, they conceal them - they abstractify (uh, abstractise?) the situation, and distort it to the point where you do not even realise there are causes. You end up thinking that an event happened merely because of the cycle. And you begin finding bizarre explanations to justify your belief in the cycle, as you indeed are doing right now - if an event happens but not how you predicted it, then you have not in fact predicted it. Causes are also events - something happens, causing something else to happen. Thus, to predict an event and its cause means in fact to predict a whole chain of events. This means that in order to reach your 'prediction', you failed to predict all the events leading up to it.

Cycles, like any other form of historical determinism, make no sense whatsoever. They are an absurdity of the highest order - you end up fusing the answer and the question together to the point where the question is the answer to the answer which is the question to the question. I mean, did the Roman Empire fall because of the cycle, or did the cycle continue because the Roman Empire fell? And if the cycle needs the Roman Empire to fall in order to continue to exist, then does the Roman Empire need the cycle to fall?

Taxes: I won't deny that the system you present is better than the current system. If you were to try to introduce it, you certainly would have my support. Don't confuse this with a willingness to compromise, however - once your system was in place, I would set about proving that it can still be improved further by adopting my system. And it certainly would be improved - your system is very open to corruption. Like you said, my example assumed there is some loophole. This, in fact, is something you can be certain of. By taxing corporations, you give corporations a reason to bribe politicians - which will sooner or later lead to the creation of loopholes. That's why it's so much simpler to have a simple flat tax for everyone.

No, a proven concept about a fair and working taxation system. And indeed you are right most people would not notice they are taxed at all in that proposed income tax system. *shrug* does it matter however?

It matters vastly. When you own an object, you treat it differently than you would if it wasn’t yours. People therefore must realise that the state is in fact built out of their property.

Capitalism’s morality: yes, it is more moral - not interfering with people's morals OR their property is far more moral than taking away people's property in the name of morality.

You mentioned religious values. Which is more moral, in your opinion - a secular state that treats religions with respect and does not discriminate between their followers (except in a situation where they try to break the law in the name of religion), or a religious state, which only accepts one religion, and regards the followers of other religions as dangerous second-class citizens, regardless of whether their moral values value those of the state's religion?

At least in my eyes, the answer is the former. And yet, the secular state, even though it is more moral and ethical, does not have any moral values of its own, besides the desire to treat all of its citizens as equals.

 

[Nemesis]

My point has always been that capitalism can exist without discriminatory laws, while socialism cannot - you can have capitalism with equal rights for all, but socialism absolutely precludes such a situation, because unless you have laws granting the poor discriminatory government protection and/or penalising the rich, you do not have socialism. Therefore, regardless of what happens in the real world, capitalism is obviously non-discriminatory, while socialism obviously is discriminatory.

Once again, your use of the word “discrimination” is but lingo. Capitalist-speak. Preaching to the choir. Only we capitalists could take any of that seriously (well, maybe with some winks), but what does that gain us? Nothing, since we were, by definition, already convinced. Are you just trying to show off, prove that you can walk the walk or talk the talk? Really, between us comrades, it isn’t necessary for you to say anything other than that you’re a capitalist.

 

[cff]

Part 1/2 - less then 1000 chars now - up to you to do the impossible

Now this is just rhetoric .

No, really?

1. you imply that the poor are in fact as helpless and inept as babies. This is obviously false.
2. You imply that capitalism would try to grant equal rights to unequal parties. This is false as well - there is a world of difference between considering all adults to be equals of other adults (and children equals of other children) and considering adults to be equals of children.

Obviosuly my reply was a joke and hugely exaggerating. But in the end it carries a pice of truth. Poor are not as helpless as babies, but they are more helpless then the rich. And indeed as such capitalism tries to grant equal rights to unequal parties.

Monopolies: well, how can I prove that, as the president of Poland I would not allow monopolies to exist, if I'm not the president of Poland? In the meantime, however, I can certainly prove that when leftists reach power, they do their best to ensure government monopolies exist, or worse - under the cover of privatisation, they give them away to their friends.

That wouldn't prove a thing. It would just show that you are against monopolies. Then others would start to argue wether you are left or right wing. My challenge was to find a right wing government that strongly opposes monopolies.

...Which raises the question of security. Do public monopolies truly offer security? As far as history is concerned, governments that exist for longer than a century (maybe even half a century?) have so far been the exception, not the rule. Thus, from the political point of view, giving your money to the government in the hope that when you get old, it will give you this money back, is a dangerous thing to do.

True. But the next goverment has to take over the debts of the previous one.
You might say: what if it doesn't? Well in that case there most certainly wasn't a peaceful change. And the country itself probably is close to being bankrupt. In this case it really doesn't matter anyway. Neither the new government nor the insurances will be able to repay you your money.

Incidentally, consider that insurances have over five hundred years of history in Europe, and maybe more. It is only in the last century that public insurance has appeared. Now, had the insurance business been risky or not lucrative, there is no way it could have had such a long history. It simply wouldn't have lasted at all - no sane capitalist would persist running a risky business that does not offer any profit. So really, there's no need to worry about merciless competition killing insurance companies.

I'll just couter with an actual example: Just look at the ENRON debacle. How many US citicens did loose half their pension to that one?

Absolutely. However, the difference between communism and capitalism is that in communism, the most corrupt somehow always float to the top. In capitalism, quite the opposite - there really is no mercy for the inept, and somebody who abuses his power is likely to lose it because others who do not abuse their power are more effective.

ROFLMAO. Again I'll just mention one actual example. Just right now there is one person of the european left party that made public how he was offered 1000 euro in expenses for a 100 euro worth trip amongst many many other rip offs of the tax payer. Now guess what HE is fired, not the responsible persons.

So how come there's never been such a total crash in history, then?

Because mankind didn't have the tools to so completely abuse the environments so far. And actually you could say that such a crash happened for example with the Neanderthals!

A problem indeed. However, I wouldn't pin the blame on capitalism - rather, on the concept of the corporation, which separates profit from everything else. There's a world of difference between a small fishing company from, say, Ireland, doing everything it can to make a profit while simultaneously realising that if it runs out of fish, it would go bankrupt, and the Norwegian subsidiary of a Japanese corporation the majority stake in which is owned by an American corporation whose majority stockholder is some guy in the middle of Guatemala. Such a corporation is also driven by profit, but there are so many levels of ownership that, to the real owners of the company, the company's policies are pure abstraction - after all, the company is a legal entity all by itself, so if it does something wrong, the owners don't risk very much.

Perfect analysis. BUT what you don't seem to realize is that full blown capitalism will ONLY produce that Norwegian/Japanese/Guatemalaian conglomerate. The little fishing company in Ireland is really just a romantic vision. It just cannot compete with the market and will vanish. This is the reality - no actually this is the goal of capitalism. This is the point where a moderate left wing mindset IS needed.

Clearly not true - you really do not need to search long these days to find a product that's advertised as "hand-made". How can that product be profitable? Surely, it's cheaper to build a factory in China and mass-produce this same product... but then it wouldn't sell!

You are talking about niche markets however. What percentage of stuff is 'hand made'? Besides guess what - the majority of hand made stuff IS DONE in China&Co because only there you could afford it. For machines it doesn't matter - they cost the same wherever they are.

>>>>Managerial positions (especially higher ones) are seldom filled by promotion. Rather you get someone from another company.<<<<
This is not true - it all depends on the policies of the individual company. It's also interesting to note that businesses LOVE to hire ex-army officers - who had spend their career operating precisely under that merit-grants-promotion system.

Of course it depends on the policies. But the majority seems to like to take people from the outside for the HIGHER levels.

Right, which is why I am now writing to you from socialist Poland using a 56k modem, while people in the US are reading my words using cable, ADSL, or whatever it is that's the newest internet solution right now. Because, after all, their capitalist, profit-oriented internet service providers are just so much worse in quality than our good old socialist governmental monopoly (sorry, ex-governmental ex-monopoly, although the distiction seems to make no difference in reality).

No, but that is why probably your 56k modem over a normal phone line works 24/7 while my (actually subventioned) private cable connection has a downtime of about 5%! Forcing me to have a 56k modem alongside it to cover that.
What you describe is quantity (speed), while I talk about QUALITY.

Not at all. I've explained why I'm not in the least concerned about overpopulation - this is a problem people have faced many times before, and always worked out. It should be added, I suppose, that overpopulation is not a problem now.

Only half true. I'd grant you that indeed right now there is only a distribution problem. However when I kill all fish in the next century this is something I should consider now even if it only gets a life or death problem in 5000 years. The I am not concerned policy only works for things you can undo.
That is also why I am agains Gene-food. Once in the wild you cannot undo it if we discover that something went awfully wrong. Just look at the Killer-Bee mistake.

Cars and carriages: yes, I know what your point was. You missed half of my point, though - the invention of the car did not merely result in some people switching from carriage-manufacturing to car-manufacturing. It brought about revolutionary changes that dramatically expanded the economy, resulting in a vast increase in job availability.

Ah, but you notice that the faster we get the less time we have.

The future and development: all this talk about where our development will go sounds a lot like this "end of history" drivel from ten years ago, and indeed many times in the past. Heck, at the end of the 19th century, a very popular thesis was that we had come to the end of development, end of warfare, and in general there would only be peace from now on - because the author simply couldn't imagine why nations would go to war against each other when they had become so civilised.

But the science I talk of IS much more humble. It really only needs very simple axioms like "the resources of our planet will deplete" that lead to the rest. What follows is a need to expand. Expand on the continent, the planet, the solar system, ...
In order to do so you have to have a certain ammount of power. Such power doesn't have to come from technic however for example. Maybe we'll evolve into an entity that can 'breath' in space - who knows. The only certanity is that we will leave the planet or face extinction.

Cycles, like any other form of historical determinism, make no sense whatsoever. They are an absurdity of the highest order - you end up fusing the answer and the question together to the point where the question is the answer to the answer which is the question to the question. I mean, did the Roman Empire fall because of the cycle, or did the cycle continue because the Roman Empire fell? And if the cycle needs the Roman Empire to fall in order to continue to exist, then does the Roman Empire need the cycle to fall?

The roman empire did fall because it did exist for as long as possible until unrest grew enough for it to be destroyed. So far I don't need a cycle.
BUT if I look at all similar empires I'll notice that all of them fell after about the same ammount of years. I will notice that there is a critical timespan after which this ammount of unrest arises when confronted with a roman like empire.
There really is no mystery here or a question like what was earlier the hen or the egg.
Your reply could be just as well be applied to any form of statistic. Statistic doesn't always be right when predicting the future just as well. But in most cases it is.

 

[cff]

2/2

Taxes: I won't deny that the system you present is better than the current system. If you were to try to introduce it, you certainly would have my support. Don't confuse this with a willingness to compromise, however - once your system was in place, I would set about proving that it can still be improved further by adopting my system. And it certainly would be improved - your system is very open to corruption. Like you said, my example assumed there is some loophole. This, in fact, is something you can be certain of. By taxing corporations, you give corporations a reason to bribe politicians - which will sooner or later lead to the creation of loopholes. That's why it's so much simpler to have a simple flat tax for everyone.

On an unrelated question - do you know how your kind of tax is named? For as far as I know "flat tax" refers to a flat percentual tax in about all literature. I'll name your type of flat tax QTax for now
Comming back to the tax system as a whole I'd consider the following:
Public healthcare: via a qtax
Public pension system: via a qtax
(both can be accompanied with a private insurance for more 'luxury')
Social tax (for stuff like payment to the unemployed): flat tax.

In the first two examples it is really a same money for the same service thing.
In the latter case it is a matter of social ethics.

You mentioned religious values. Which is more moral, in your opinion - a secular state that treats religions with respect and does not discriminate between their followers (except in a situation where they try to break the law in the name of religion), or a religious state, which only accepts one religion, and regards the followers of other religions as dangerous second-class citizens, regardless of whether their moral values value those of the state's religion?

Moral? probably the 1st one. Higher ethical values? Probably the second one.
You should note in any case that when I talk about religious values I only talk about the relious values. ANY and ALL forms of religion that I saw so far disgust me more or less. That is I HATE the organisations, not the values that they should defend (that they don't do it is the main reason I hate them).
So what you offer as 2nd solution is really falling more or less into my hate category. I'd go for something else somewhere inbetween.