While the cameras surround the flamboyant fringes, the rest of the country is on a different mission. Quietly and untelegenically, Americans are trying to repair their economic values.

This project begins with the pessimism and anger you see in the protest movements. Seventy percent of Americans now say their country is in decline, according to various polls. When people are gloomy they have fewer babies, and, sure enough, fertility rates have dropped sharply, with the most dramatic plunges occurring in the hardest hit states, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

But that doesn't mean people are just shrinking back. Quietly but decisively, Americans are trying to restore the moral norms that undergird our economic system.

The first norm is that you shouldn't spend more than you take in. After an explosion of debt over the past few decades, Americans are now reacting strongly against the debt culture. According to the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll, three-quarters of Americans said they'd be better off if they carried no debt whatsoever. Not long ago, most people saw debt as a useful tool for consumption and enjoyment. Now they see it as a seduction and an obstacle.

By choice or necessity, eight million Americans have stopped using bank-issued credit cards, according to The National Journal. The average credit card balance has fallen 10 percent this year from 2010. Banks, households and businesses are all reducing their debt levels.

Second, Americans are trying to re-establish the link between effort and reward. This was the link that was severed on Wall Street, where so many made so much for work that served no productive purpose. This was the link that was frayed by the bailouts, when people who broke the rules still got rewarded.

In sphere after sphere, strong majorities want to see a balance between what you produce and what you get. The bank bailouts worked and barely cost the government anything, but they are ferociously unpopular because the unjust got rewarded. The auto bailouts mostly worked, but they are unpopular even in the Midwestern states that directly benefited because those who failed in the market still got the gold. Public sector unions are unpopular because of the perception that benefit packages are out of balance.

David Fuller's view David Brooks article takes a contrarian view of America's decline which many regard as secular, in the meaning of lasting for a very long time. Many readers may suspect that David Brooks is arguing with his heart rather than his head.

I think Brooks is largely right. Fullermoney does not have a Pollyannaish view, having frequently commented on America's decline for well over a decade. We see this as largely an issue of governance, at national, state, corporate and individual levels.

America's problems are not unique. History reveals that the fortunes of all important nations have moved in long-term cyclical trends, not unlike markets only in longer cycles. Most empires deteriorated from within, although wars were often a crucial factor.

America may have been bankrupted by its military activities over the last fifty years but it has not been destroyed by war. Instead, its greatest wounds have been self-inflicted. Now it is trying to rediscover what David Brooks describes as its "economic values".

This is a painful, politically acrimonious but ultimately cathartic process.

The tangible evidence of America's recovery starts with a dramatic change in corporate governance since the 2008 meltdown. Corporate America went into survival mode, cut waste, strengthened its balance sheets and took a longer-term view of its future. These changes are yielding dividends, literally and figuratively. We see the evidence in the profits and share prices for America's leading companies.

Personal governance is also improving, evidenced by debt deleveraging. This is a lengthy process, due to a weak economy and high unemployment. Also, households are unable to benefit directly from faster growing markets overseas, unlike America's successful multinational companies.

I see less evidence of significant improvement in national and state governance, but it will follow. In a democracy, as opposed to authoritarian regimes, citizens have a better chance of voting out people who are part of the problem rather than the solution. 'Cometh the hour, cometh the man', or woman. America needs more politicians with personal experience in profit centres, in my opinion, rather than only cost centres.

Lastly, and for balance, here is a dissenting view by John Cassidy: Rational Irrationality, published by The New Yorker.


You decide.