Fiction and Belief Systems

Every year I spend time in countries that people call “emerging economies” and also in “developed economies”. With the current difficult economic climate it seems that developed economies have in fact become “declining economies”. It makes me wonder if things are declining not only because of bad political and business decisions, but because of something more foundational. Does it have to do with shifting philosophical presuppositions? In other words, does the declining economic climate have go do with the change in belief systems, particularly in the Western world that has shifted from modernism to postmodernism? In other words, has the shift in belief systems impacted the way we live, and through that does it have an influence on our economic condition? Many people shy away from questioning belief systems because of a paradigm that says all beliefs are the same, or because of political correctness or whatever. But these are questions I like to ask and they are reflected in my stories.