In Search of Values

1^st September 2006

The Malta Independent - Friday Wisdom

The daily news flow confirms that, as a society, we have lost the values that were held dear by our ancestors and that such a loss of values is at the core of our social and economic malaise.

Last week we had a western style security-van ambush where bandits executed a professional job in booting the substantial cash loot from a bullet-proof vehicle that had just left the cash depot of one of our main banks.

We had a hold-up in an internet café that offers money transmission services to foreign guest workers where, again, a sizeable bounty was grabbed by those who feel entitled to take a short cut to riches without having to work hard for it.

We also had several reports of petty theft, including a bag-snatching crime that left a young tourist injured. Perhaps by coincidence, but maybe not, in the last two weeks I encountered two particular and separate cases of petty corporate fraud by relatively junior members of staff who pretend to have the right to make their official salary a small fraction of the total remuneration package they illegally help themselves to by fleecing their employer.

Unlike what happens in many of our competitors’ countries, banks here have to be guarded by armed personnel at the door in order to prevent armed hold-ups inside our banking halls, which partly explains why hold-ups on carriers with cash bounties en route to or from the banks are now more common.

The economic cost of such crime could be enormous, even though it is hard to quantify. Apart from the cost of the actual losses and the cost of the prevention measures in order to protect against such crime, there is the cost of lost opportunities of business which escapes us because of such crime.

Would tourists continue to consider us as a destination worth visiting if walking alone in the street becomes a security risk? Would new investment consider us as an attractive location if security becomes a considerable operating expense to prevent external criminality and internal fraud?

The question I ask myself is: what happened to the society of 40 years ago, when we were all much poorer but had no problem in leaving the front door unlocked, as the core values of society offered sufficient security to ensure that what’s mine stays mine and what’s yours stays yours, without having to incur considerable security costs.

Why do so many in our society feel the need to get rich quick, whatever the route, whatever the consequences? Why have we corrupted society to the extent that normal earnings from a normal job, even if it is high-paying – let alone if it is at near minimum wage – is not sufficient to support an average standard of living and many need to support their income with legal activities on the side and sometimes illegal tricks to supplement their income to maintain their consumption pattern?

Has it got anything to do with the gambling culture we have fostered, where we are spoilt for choice of casinos to make or lose a fortune on the spinning wheel or the one-armed bandit, and can bet on any sporting event in practically every corner of every village?

This insatiable urge for consumption has probably something to do with the alarming result of the census of church attendance on Sundays which is in evident freefall, clearly indicating that pretty soon we will be crossing a landmark threshold where less than 50 per cent of the population will be attending Sunday Mass.

This is not to suggest that the Sunday Mass is an indispensable source of social values, as we all know many people who skip Sunday Mass but whose daily life typifies more solid social values than those exhibited by many regular church-goers. But it is certainly an indication that the same loss of social values that is giving rise to the increase in crime that goes hand in hand with excessive consumption, is also at the heart of falling church attendances.

Maybe I am doing some mental gymnastics, but I feel quite sure that part of the general economic malaise we are suffering from has a bit more than a mere casual link to such loss of core social values.

This is showing up in falling savings ratios and increased consumption debt that is gradually eroding one of the key values bequeathed to us by our forefathers, the culture of thrift that has stood this country extremely well in financing its development without resorting to external debt.

What will happen when there is a generational transmission of assets from the current generation in their third age and who are still embedded with precious core values, onto a future generation that is incurring debt quite freely and for whom it is normal to spend and consume today what they could be earning a year or more down the road? A generation that even as of now is occasionally hitting unsustainable levels of debt and consumption and has to be baled out by parents and grandparents.

I am seeking rather than offering answers, in the same way that society, on an unstoppable slippery slope of loss of values, is searching for answers to where to search for the reinstatement of such values. Answers that do not seem to be coming from anywhere, even though we pride ourselves on being a near hundred per cent catholic society that masochistically denies itself the civil right of divorce enjoyed by the world over. Those who argue that the introduction of divorce would lead to a loss of values had better re-think. The free-fall in core values could hardly get any worse, with or without divorce.