Eric Liu, founder and CEO of Citizen University and executive director of the Aspen Institute Citizenship and American Identity Program, spoke this year at the Council on Foundations Conference in Dallas, Texas.  He has recently published, You’re More Powerful Than You Think, A Citizen’s Guide to Making Change Happen.

The book discusses how ordinary citizens can engage in civic life by doing one simple thing – taking back their power. Liu says that if we feel powerless in the face of societal injustice, we’ve been operating under some assumptions:

• That power concentrates (it feeds on itself and compounds).
• That power justifies itself (it creates a story as to why it is legitimate).
• That power is finite and zero sum (when someone has power, someone else doesn’t).

We in New Mexico see these power assumptions at work in the hoarding, poverty mentality of our community. Hoarding means that if one person prospers then others must fail. That access is closed to decision-making entities, economic opportunity, education and/or simple encouragement, because if we could access them, then those with influence, money or power would lose theirs. Poverty mentality is a belief that because I have less, I will always have less. Why should I bother trying to better myself when my efforts will come to nothing anyway?

Liu gives many examples from around the country and the world about how the three assumptions play out, often in ways that compound injustices and inequities in our system. He specifically calls out hoarding and poverty/scarcity mentalities as the cause of the injustices and inequities.

(Power is apolitical, according to Liu. The strategies Liu outlines can and have been used by people, organizations and governments of all political leanings. He gives just as many examples from the right as the left, including how Donald Trump used the power assumptions to win the White House.)

And then Liu turns the assumptions on their head, laying out a case for how these assumptions can be disrupted by ordinary people who refuse to accept them as set in stone.

Instead, he gives nine strategies for taking back one’s power that transform the three assumptions:

• When power concentrates and is winner-take all, we must change the game.
• When power creates a story of why it is legitimate, we must change the story.
• When power is assumed to be finite and zero-sum, we must change the equation.

At the heart of all the strategies is that when individuals believe they are powerful, they are. That they have power within them.

Near the end of the book, he asks the reader several questions that help them understand how to take and use power to the community’s benefit.

• Do you integrate character and power?
• Do you try to ensure that more people can participate in power? (Power is not a zero-sum game – there is infinite power.)
• Do you define your interest in ways that are more than purely self-centered? Because self-interest is mutual interest.
• Will you decide to make yourself useful?

Liu discusses his book, here.

We at the Albuquerque Community Foundation believe that a rising tide floats all boats. That is, when one prospers, we all prosper. When everyone has access to education, economic opportunity and the ability to influence the power structures in our community, we all do better. We believe that power is infinite, that sharing it increases it, and creates a vital environment where everyone can do well for himself and his family. We are powerful.

What do you believe?