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Combining development with morals
Monday, 6 August 2012 - 11:48 AM SL Time
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Depending on what a country determines is its development model, choosing between development and morals could be as exacting and as difficult for a country as choosing between bread and guns . The latter motifs refer to the oft cited dilemma in classical economics of a country having either more development (bread) or a greater defence capability (guns) with its generally scarce resources. It is projected as an either-or proposition of the first magnitude.
The development debate in Sri Lanka could be considered as having come full circle. Since the gaining of political independence, Sri Lanka, until the mid seventies, followed more or less, a mixed economic order. That is, the economic model experimented with was an amalgam of the features of the free or market-driven and closed economies. It is not the case that the mixed economy was wholly jettisoned, but with the return to power of the UNP in 1977, we had an economy which was tilted more towards a free market one. From 1970 to 1977, under the United Left Front administration, we had an economy with a pronounced bent towards the closed and state-controlled model.
Administrations since 1994, have displayed a reluctance to veer clearly away from the market-driven economic model, but welfarism too was made to remain a vibrant structural feature of the economy. There is the Samurdhi welfare scheme, for instance, which has been playing a key role in this country s poverty alleviation efforts. Needless to say, vital sectors, such as, health and education, have remained important state subjects and have had a crucial bearing in rendering more tolerable the material burdens of those who are considered the ordinary people.
While the so-called free market economy has played a role in making the local economy more vibrant and productive, administrations since 1977 seem to have shied away from the responsibility of assessing the total impact this system has on the moral standards of the public. The generally negative impact, in terms of morality, the economy has been exerting, has been increasingly evident since the mid seventies and in the present times, with sexual promiscuity asserting itself very disconcertingly over the length and breadth of the social spectrum, the time seems right to do a searching, comprehensive study of how the market-driven economy affects the ethical standards of the people. After all, there is no denying that a public which has lost its moral bearings and principles could in no way develop. Likewise, a society which is lawless has no future worth speaking of.
But we need to place on record that moral decadence is not having all sections of our public in its clutches. There are persons and families, for instance, who lead very honourable, exemplary lives and to these sections we bestow our respect and deference. May they be role models, is our wish.
We know for a fact that this issue is receiving the attention of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the concern expressed by Minister Basil Rajapaksa recently at a public function, over the need to sustain moral standards, is concrete proof that the administration as a whole is sensitizing itself to the question of instilling in those sections which are deficient in this respect, a greater awareness of ethical principles.
There is no escaping the need to reassess our economic models. With the open economy and greater exposure to the more decadent sections of the global public, came greater moral licentiousness to this country. In any case, when money comes to matter above almost everything else, and this happens when a society and culture is market driven, trying to protect morality could prove almost futile.
Therefore, we need to combine the best of the open and closed economies in our country, without forfeiting our moral and cultural heritage, and this is a number one challenge which must be faced by all responsible sections, including the state, and overcome. Hopefully, public discourse will increasingly focus on this dilemma from now on.
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