In the late ’80s, when the great St. Patti of Smith sang that people have the power, she was singing to a flock that wasn’t much paying attention. Ronald Reagan was still president and a lot of us were busy inoculating ourselves against causes with things.

It was the tail-end of a decade devoted to consumerism. Capitalism was rewarding its (scattered few) winners by showering them with vast wealth and access to every inch of human reach, including, eventually, space. People who didn’t make it all the way around the capitalist board game lived in poverty. We who dwelled somewhere in between convinced ourselves we would one day win the game if we just kept playing.

And through it all, St. Patti was right about redeeming the work of fools. Capitalism is still chewing people up and spitting them out. Look at the country’s growing the homeless population. Capitalism is unkind.

But it is also malleable.

In between rich people’s rocket rides and powdered milk, we, the lowly consumer, have a lot of power, especially when we bring our friends. We can strike fear in the heart of the oligarchs when we perform the simple act of taking our business elsewhere.

(I need to insert here that for some, shopping at big box stores that offer low, low prices is pretty much the only choice. Shopping ethically does not always mean paying more, but when it does mean paying more — even a little bit — I will not throw stones at cash-strapped people who must opt for lower prices.)

For the rest of us: If you’ve ever logged onto Amazon’s website to watch your delivery grow ever closer — three stops away, two, one — you understand the kind of power we’ve handed some of these entities who aren’t playing nice. That’s even when their corporate values do not jibe with ours, which is weird, if you think about it.

Money talks, as they say, and it speaks faster than a vote or a court case or an impeachment trial.

We have an authoritarian president who’s running the country like a bad playground, lumbering around terrorizing people who only want to sit on the swing set. A bully never operates in a vacuum. A bully needs a posse and ours has an army of individuals and entities willing to sign on to ugly policies in the name of the next quarter.

But organizations that stand up often finding themselves uniquely rewarded. Look at Harvard. After the Trump regime threatened to pull the school’s tax-exempt status unless they bent a knee on curriculum, hiring and admissions demands, Harvard alumni opened their sizable wallets to support their alma mater. The White House’s response was a sad trombone of a Trump official saying the original notice had been sent by mistake. Sure it was.

(Oh, and by the way? As a college professor, I’ll listen to the First Felon’s ideas about curriculum the day he hands me the nuclear codes. Stay in your lane, numpty.)

Or look at Costco. Even before Trump 2.0, Costco treated its employees better than they’re treated at many large retailers. When Trump began raining down executive orders meant to Make America Segregated Again, multiple stores acquiesced.

Not Costco. The Washington-based company publicly said they’d stick to their values, and by February, they had gained 7 million new shoppers, including me. I do not actually need to buy products in bulk, but I have a pantry, and if I must find a use for three gigantic jugs of ranch dressing, I shall do so. Want one?

On the flip side, look at Tesla, Elon Musk’s exploding car company. Given that Musk has run roughshod over our private data from a weirdly exalted position that he didn’t earn in an election, people have moved on to other means of conveyance. In fact, the outcry has been so loud that even the president hawking Musk’s cars from the White House lawn did nothing but birth a million memes and send more people to their regional Tesla Takedown.

Because their corporate morals looked to be no more than window dressing, people have found it easier than they thought to wean themselves from companies such as Target and Amazon.

I’ve added to my no-list products from anyone connected by blood or marriage to DOGE, so the ironically named Connecticut-based Lesser Evil products are off the table, and even when Hershey is done buying them, I’m done consuming them. Even if the company owner’s young son, Edward “Big Balls” (a nickname he gave himself) Coristine stops working for Musk, I will not buy that product. I have too long a memory.

I am also planning summer trips using airlines other than Avelo, after Andrew Levy, their CEO, tried to explain that he made a good business decision to sign on to the federal government’s human trafficking operation out of Arizona. Andrew, I don’t need to file a Freedom of Information Act request — as you cheekily suggested the state’s attorney general do — to know this stinks. (And well done last week, protesters at Tweed New Haven Airport.)

We all need cars, vacations, snacks and assorted other nonsense. Strike a blow for democracy. Don’t spend money where your values aren’t welcome. And don’t pretend you’re powerless. You are not. Let’s go.

Susan Campbell is the author of “Frog Hollow: Stories from an American Neighborhood,” “Tempest-Tossed: The Spirit of Isabella Beecher Hooker” and “Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism and the American Girl.” She is Distinguished Lecturer at the University of New Haven, where she teaches journalism. slcampbell417@gmail.com.