Louis Moyston | Are we a country without a conscience?

On May 20, 2026, The Gleaner carried a most important article, “Conscience crisis”, that must not be ignored. 

The article is important because it raises a critical description of the behaviour of youth and adults surveyed in 2024. The survey revealed “frustration over perceived corruption, injustice, alongside an increasing willingness among younger people to bend rules and prioritise personal advancement.” 

As I saw this page one article, I had a sudden flashback to a booklet excerpts from speeches of Michael Manley (1988) titled “A country without a conscience”. This booklet is a moral critique of the prevailing values unleashed by the new political and economic turn related to globalisation, marketisation and deregulation that effectively began in the early years of the 1980s. 

The “conscience crisis” persists for nearly four decades after Manley’s revelations. The first principle is that statistics cannot explain itself but it gives useful measurement of human behaviour. In the following passages, permit me to have a conversation involving selected writers associated with the emergence of the new individualism, the global capitalist economy, the limits of the market and democracy and globalisation and its negative effect on national culture.

This article evaluates the following selected issues from “Conscience crisis”: youth as a self-conscious group, self-interest, unethical behaviour, inequality, injustice and “giving respect to the culture that has made us who we are”. This moral critique is grounded in the use of a selection of writings on matters concerning the emergence of the new individualism, the global capitalist economy, the limits of the market and democracy and globalisation and its negative effect on national culture. 

There was an explosion of insightful literature during the 1990s of the profound social changes in the late 20th century resulting from the modern technological and cultural revolutions. There is a view that emerged in the mid-1990s that offers critical views on the age of globalisation, marketisation and the advancement of raw individualism. It was in this setting in which youth emerged as a “self-conscious” class. This group appeared, influenced by their newfound purchasing power combined with the ascendency of the power and impact of the new technological revolution.

Along with this rise of a new technological revolution was the advancement of a new and “raw” individualism. In looking at “The group and the self” (The New York Times, 1990), Daniel Goleman charges that this form of Western (raw) individualism is at odds with the values in developing societies. In these traditional societies the group interest “overrides personal goals”; the new values promote the individual interest above the group. He concludes that this form of individualism in the age of globalisation is characterised by “what is in it for me?” mentality accompanied with a sense of immediate gratification. 

DEEP IMPACT ON BELIEFS

Another view suggests that the rise and role of mass culture combined with new social and psychological theories have had profound influence on the society, family, education, race, politics, economics and the attitudes towards one another. Mass culture displaced the church, the school and the family as the major institutions for socialisation; and that the youth (18-21) developed sharped differences with their parents in terms of beliefs and values.

What are the effects of these new theories on belief and the self? There is the view that these social and psychological theories of our time have had deep impact on our beliefs. 

In the recent past children were urged to be self-critical, aspire to self-knowledge; they were encouraged to accomplish their goals and behave in a manner that they maintain self-respect. These new values contributed to the rise of self-interest and promoted self-centredness as a virtue. 

This perspective argues that today the old values are almost exactly reversed in the promotion of “self-esteem”. 

Another late 1990s source locates the root of the ascendency of the market and democracy after the fall of the Soviet Union that signaled the perception of the triumphed of the market economy and democracy. As a result, the main mission of American diplomacy was to export both goods and American values. This hubristic quality of Western thinking suggests that these values are the building blocks of economic prosperity and individual freedom.

The contemporary economic relations is described as market fundamentalism, in which its exclusive reliance on the market poses different types of danger to the democratic society. In terms of political leadership and elections, Soros (1998) argues that instead of standing for some intrinsic values, political leaders just want to be elected at all cost under the prevailing ideology of market fundamentalism. 

The ascendency of profit motive influenced the decline of an effective decision-making process, thereby promoting self-interest. Consequently, this relationship leads to the erosion of moral values, “resulting in the disenchantment with politics”. This principle of self-interest has corrupted politics. 

Looking back at the ideas about this “new” and “raw” individualism and its feature of putting the self above the group, combined with marketisation and the “profit motive”, has led to the emergence of the transactional society. He suggests that transactions have completely superseded social relationship. 

Market fundamentalism is a great threat to the democratic society because in the financial market it is unsound and unstable; and in the non-market sector this instability leads to the “failure of politics” and the “erosion of moral values”. The promotion of “self-interest” to a moral principle has corrupted politics, thereby leading to the “failure of politics” as manifested in apathy. Market fundamentalism has deepened inequality and various forms of injustices. 

Michael Manley’s “A country without a conscience” reflects a moral critique of the maturing neoliberal order in the late 1980s, focusing on the systemic injustice, inequality, exploitation, societal indifference to marginalisation. 

Of course, those views were embellished with fierce denunciation of neo-colonialism and the neoliberal setting of the decade of the 1980s. He advocated for profound social, economic and political changes in both the national and global spheres. 

Time for a moral revolution.

- Louis E.A. Moyston, PhD., is a lecturer in the Department of Government at The University of the West Indies and social commentator. Email feedback to thearchives01@yahoo.com and columns@gleanerjm.com. ONLINE ONLY COMMENTARY.