We live in an age where headlines scream of political crises, economic recessions, and moral decay. The world feels like it’s hurtling toward a cliff.
Democracy was once the proud promise that every voice mattered. Today, it often feels like an illusion wrapped in campaign slogans. Political polarization turns every debate into a battlefield, while power concentrates in the hands of a few who play the system like a chessboard.
When truth becomes negotiable and facts bend under the weight of propaganda, democracy doesn’t die overnight it quietly suffocates in the shadows.
However, there is something deeper that seems to be withering and decaying like never before the collective conscience of society driven by a new form of class apathy and indifference especially gripping the urban consumerist middle and upper classes who couldn’t care less about debates around phenomena such as rising inequalities, economic insecurities across the spectrum, social injustices or compromised elections. It is this apathy that poses a real threat to our democracy and economy from within.
The Dying Economy
Economies are supposed to serve the people, not the other way around. Yet rising inequality, corporate greed, and unsustainable consumption suggest that the system is rigged for the few while millions struggle to afford the basics.
An economy is like the heart of a nation but when that heart pumps wealth only upward, the rest of the body begins to starve. And just like a failing heart, the collapse can be sudden.
The Dying Conscience
Perhaps the real tragedy is not political or economic, but moral. Democracies weaken because citizens stop caring about the truth. Economies collapse because we normalize exploitation and call it “business as usual.”
If corruption thrives, it’s because people look away. If injustice grows, it’s because we’ve decided it’s someone else’s problem.
A dying conscience is the root from which all other decay springs. Once empathy is gone, neither democracy nor economy can survive for long.
The Harsh Reality
We can debate which is in greater danger governance, markets, or morality but they are deeply connected. A corrupt conscience creates corrupt politics; corrupt politics produce broken economies; broken economies breed more corruption.
The cycle doesn’t stop until people decide that enough is enough.
The Choice Ahead
We can keep scrolling past injustice, shrugging at scandals, and pretending our small voices don’t matter. Or we can wake up. Democracy doesn’t require perfection it requires participation. Economies don’t need to be flawless they need to be fair. And conscience? That’s a personal battle, fought daily in the quiet moments when no one is watching.