Power to change

LITTLE ROCK — As families, businesses, institutions and governments scale back and redefine how they invest, hire, lend, fund and spend resources, a new era of frugality is being ushered into the American psyche that is long overdue.

Accompanying this shift are also greater demands for responsible, accountable and transparent leaders in political, social and economic spheres. Americans have simply redoubled their attention on how certain organizational and institutional practices affect their present and future. In a strange way, people have been sleepwalking through life, perhaps as they were lulled into complacency by systems and realities that turned out to essentially be on life support.

The financial and political crises that have emerged over the past few years underscore the need for redefining what’s considered normal and acceptable, especially when you consider shrinking government budgets, corporate down-sizings, and diminished incomes and investments.

The changing economic landscape has created opportunities for citizens to re-examine how they govern their lives; their values and priorities regarding personal consumption, spending and investing; and whether they possess the will to hold corporate and governmental institutions accountable for their fiscal and social decision-making and practices.

The real power lies with the individual, their families and larger communities when it comes to deciding how financial resources are spent, which companies benefit profit-wise, and how taxpayer dollars are being allocated. This power is increasingly manifesting itself as citizens express discontent in the marketplace by adjusting their behavior to reflect personal values and priorities, and as the electorate displays its civic duties through new forms of protest and activism.

In the marketplace, people power is evident as they choose which companies to purchase goods and services from and which financial firms and mutual-fund families to invest their dollars with.

In politics, “we the people” are exercising the power to elect and remove legislators who may or may not fulfill campaign promises. Citizen groups are routinely rejecting the expansion efforts of retailers and other businesses to their communities when they deem them to be disruptive, unappealing, or detrimental to the well-being and culture of their communities.

Now more than ever, the public at large must refocus and shift away from the undisciplined and irrational habits of recent years so that they are able to show force and make substantive declarations about what is acceptable to them as individuals and communities. People must exercise their economic, social and political strength to prove that they are more responsible and informed as consumers, investors, entrepreneurs and voters.

Citizens really need to look in the mirror and examine their own roles in contributing to the economic mess around us all, and resist the tendency to blame someone else for personal pain and losses.

It was individual zeal and greed that fueled the economic frenzy which has left so many people feeling duped and angry. Regular folks can only point a finger at themselves and should not be throwing hot coals at those corporate and financial giants that are still standing, even in lightof the scores of workers, families and communities that are still reeling from job losses, abandoned and foreclosed homes, and shrinking budgets.

At the end of the day, the same marketplace whose growth and exuberance was created by intense consumerism and patronage is the same marketplace that will ultimately enable families and communities to reinvent infinite new possibilities for stability, security and prosperity. And what’s even more ironic, the very same companies and banks which engaged in the marketing practices that motivated excessive consumer spending are now in a position to help people dial back their spending and consumption habits in ways that should produce moderation and sensibility.

The chickens may have finally come home to roost as it relates to government spending and the fraud, waste and abuse that have shattered the prospects for too many federal government programs. America’s bad habits and fiscal irresponsibility render that kind of government intervention impossible in today’s climate.

The politicians who are still trying to force new heights in government economic stimulus are doing so at the expense of our nation’s fiscal soundness and fiscal credibility around the globe. Those who refuse to see these attempts for what they really are or who want to believe otherwise should only hope they aren’t still living when the ball drops on the American taxpayers.

The power to change our bad habits is at hand; our task is to choose to embrace the opportunities to shift our thinking and practices to match our personal and national values and priorities.

Wana Duhart, a freelance writer, is the founder and CEO of Trahud Enterprises, and creator of The Village Space blog.