No, it's the other way around. Economic changes result in changed morality

A nation or a culture with an excellent moral foundation can survive bad economic times.....and can even come out stronger.

As, for example.....the United States and the Great Depression.

However, a weak moral climate leaves individual people without the strength of character that's necessary to face a crisis, and to deal with it adequately. A crisis such as a failing economy.

In a culture of weak moral character, people are too selfish to sacrifice anything -- and thus, they eventually end up by losing everything.

Not true. If it were, the nuclear family would be a universal, found in all human cultures. It is not. It hasn't even been the norm for most of our own history. "Paradise Lost" syndrome doesn't just refer to the Noble Savage myth. It also applies to those who romanticize our own past. The nuclear family was the rule in the '50s, which was also an economically prosperous time for us. Assuming the former caused the latter is not supported by the facts.

Our societies in the West -- and most societies in the East -- have never been based upon a family structure that amounts to communes.

Communal living, like all other forms of utopianism, simply doesn't work as advertised. In spite of all that's transpired -- from the bankrupt fantasies of the 19th century Utopians, to the abysmal failure of 20th century ideologies of various stripes -- we still haven't learned the lesson.

However -- people will insist on continuing to try out things other than the basic unit that has always been the elementary building-block of every stable, advanced society.

The nuclear family.

And, yes -- it has been the norm for most of history. In stable societies, that is.

Another example of economics dictating morality was London in Dickens' time. Economically speaking, it was nearly impossible to support a household with more than three people in it. Even the middle class could not afford more than one child at a time. So if a second child came along, they either killed it, or kicked the older child out of the house.
You see both at work in Oliver Twist. Orphanages were church-sanctioned baby-killing organizations. More than ninety percent of children in such orphanages died before they reached age 16.

Earlier, you recommended a book.

I'd like to recommend one, too.

It's entitled When Nations Die: Ten Warning Signs of a Culture in Crisis by Jim Nelson Black.

Among other symptoms -- no value placed upon the lives of infants. From ancient Carthage just prior to its razing by the Romans, to the present day......

Certain patterns stay the same.

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