Moral corruption leads to recession

Our world has witnessed many economic crises. Between 1820 and 1929 alone, there were 13 crises that seriously rocked the global economy. The financial crisis that began in the US economy in August 2007 and that later spread to all western economies turned into a major global economic crisis. At first, people thought it would end very quickly, but over a six-year period, several countries have been brought to the brink of bankruptcy.
Our modern day crisis is termed as the “Great Recession,” and the whole world is literally in a state of helplessness. One shocking and disastrous result has been that there has been a sharp rise in the number of suicides in the wake of this recession. In the US for example, according to RT.com, in which they quoted the National Center for Disease Control as saying, “Suicide rates from 1999 to 2010 ‘increased significantly’ across all four geographic areas and in 39 states. The state of Wyoming recorded the highest increase in suicides with a 78.8 percent jump (31.1 per 100,000), while even the sunny state of Hawaii witnessed a 61.2 percent increase (21.9 per 100,000).”
Many nations have been driven to the brink of ruin and are seeking technical solutions such as printing of paper money to ease the tidal wave of economic sufferings they face; yet they are unable to resolve them. The crisis is continuing, despite countries’ direct interventions. For example, the Bush administration recommended a $700 billion financial rescue package. The subsequent legislation gave the government wide authority to assume responsibility for those debts that many financial institutions could not repay. This is described as the largest financial rescue plan since the Great Depression of 1929.
Today’s world is clearly shaped by neoliberal economic orthodoxy and this has opened the door to excessive greed, which leaves no room for spirituality. In such a system, the individual or economic unit/entity looks out for him alone, acting selfishly. People in this system live in a constant state of fear and they feel that they cannot trust anyone, knowing fully that others are just as selfish as they are. This materialistic state of mind in which resources are fought over, puts them in deep trouble, with them being none the wiser. It sets a vicious circle of selfishness, fear, and greed, and in such an environment positive creative abilities would not fully bloom. Generosity, humanity, and spirituality suffer, as people cannot feed their soul with peace. Being depressed and in a state of fear all the time takes its toll. Feelings of love and gentleness toward others wither, while loneliness and negative feelings toward others rise. People are taught and deluded into thinking that living this way is the only option, and they think that they will be wealthier or be happier living this lifestyle, but in reality they couldn’t be more wrong.
When one starts acting in this manner, the world starts striking back, as if taking revenge for not living love. Financial problems or health problems, losing one’s job, one’s family; things just start to go downhill and it might look like one could never get out from under that mess, hence the rise in the number of cases of suicide. People become further depressed, their health more compromised and the things they own will lose all meaning.
An attitude of survival of the fittest develops between people; animosity grows, fueling hatred toward others. Deep fear of losing their investments, their cash savings and livelihood drives people to horde assets, limiting the supply and velocity of money circulating in the economy. This is one of the main reasons behind the stagnation. This view of crushing others, as people care for themselves alone, leads to a downfall in the circulation of currency. They don’t even consider acting selflessly, as according to them the most important thing is their own interests and making sacrifices would mean they would lose or be viewed as weak. In order to eliminate this tragedy in society, the hatred that people feel for one another must be done away with. Forgiveness, love, compassion, derived from sound morality needs to rise.
A spiritual and moral collapse leads to a terrible collapse on the production of supply when people do not live by social ethics. We no longer see the high levels of production we used to: Aesthetics and arts suffer; in our time we don’t find artists of the same caliber as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo or Raphael. We no longer produce famous composers such as Beethoven, Bach or Chopin. Even scientists have lost the urge to make new discoveries; they content themselves with doing minor research around existing discoveries. They are unable to make impressive discoveries. The economic crisis is like a bottomless pit. Beauty and prosperity can only appear with better morality and social ethics freeing us from selfishness and egoism. The awaited regeneration in the markets will come when the spirit of cooperation is restored and the result will be wealth the like of which has never been seen before.

- Ece Koc is the Executive Director of Building Bridges, TV host and a political analyst.