Abstract

This article provides a critique of the self-validating public responses to the international crisis of legitimacy facing the banking industry and professional politicians since the economic crisis of 2009. It compares the failure of economic conscience within Establishment institutions with the public culture of intrinsic economic conscience found in some developing economies and similar embryonic developments in Western economies. It highlights the way this alternative economic conscience might contribute to public discourse about economic and political governance, and thereby to democratic renewal in more supposedly advanced societies. © 2010, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.