Is the "American Dream" dead...

Venom

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or have the goalposts just moved. I always hear bits and pieces about it from people I consider pretty knowledgeable.

I hear that Reagan killed it, which I hear a lot from liberals. That is why today it's harder for poor people to get to the top than it was decades ago when we had actual progressive presidents. But others say today the middle class just owns a lot more stuff per household, stuff that in the 50s and 60s we couldn't have had in large quantities, like computers and boats, more than one car per family, etc. Is it a matter of the different skills you need for jobs today, cause back then it appears to have been manufacturing heavy.

I'm attracted to the progressive vision of liberals like Bernie Sanders. But I know populism doesn't really like nuance; conspiracy theorists, Ron Paul bots, etc. and there may be a bigger picture here.

I'd like to hear from people in this forum who are knowledgeable.
 
If it is, then good. It sounds good on paper - everybody can make it big, if they just work hard enough - but it's illogical (somebody needs to clean the toilets), and the pernicious implication is that those who have not made it big haven't done so because they haven't worked hard enough. In other words, the poor deserve to be poor.

I think it also allows xenophobia and racism. If you truly believe that you deserve to have made it big because you've worked hard, but you haven't made it big, then whose fault is that? It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it's the fault of all of them, "coming over here and taking our jobs". It's them who have kept you down, not unfair employment laws, or unrealistic expectations built on a fallacy.

So, yeah, if the American Dream is dead, then good. I'm glad.
 
It's definitely not dead, but it's just becoming more and more obvious that it is just a dream, like Puff, the Magic Dragon. And waking up can be so unpleasant that you may prefer denial. To some people, Trump is a wake-up call. To others, he's the one who keeps the dream alive ...





ETA: The proletarian version of "the American way of life"
 
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I don't think it ever existed. It was just a good slogan for propaganda purposes. Lots of people bought into it and that served the vested interests well but I think more and more people are waking up to the fact that the system was always rigged to keep them poor and the 1% in control of everything.
 
Was it built into the 'American Dream' paradigm to take on crippling debt? Because that's how so much stuff has come to be 'owned' by the middle class. If we were made to pay for or else jettison those things purchased on credit, a whole hell of a lot of the middle would find themselves to be nearer to the working poor.
 
Isn't that the definition of the working poor who think that they're middle class?
 
dann said:
Isn't that the definition of the working poor who think that they're middle class?
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Yes they just think that because their parents were middle class and they have the trappings of it that they a really are. Then they find out they can't buy a house because of their student loan debt. Silly buggers wasting money on frivolities like an education.
 
I was born in ‘46, and the “middle class American dream” for the people I knew was fairly simple. We were all from blue-collar factory/manufacturing neighborhoods, with a sprinkling of small-business owners thrown in.
The dream was pretty simple... Home ownership, secure job, comfortable retirement. A lad could come out of high school, walk into an industrial job, and stay there until retirement.
Maybe a new car every few years.

Strong unions meant strong benefits and a secure pension. (Except when the pension funds were looted by mobsters...)

I was around for the start of the collapse of that dream. The industrial sector in St. Louis was rather rapidly collapsing. The plant my dad worked at, National Lead, closed down two weeks after he retired. The auto manufacturing sector locally largely left for Mexico.

I always feel a bit conflicted about the “work hard and you’ll get ahead” idea. Seems to me the folks with their butts in the butter often get there because of their parent’s wealth, and the idea of “working hard” is left to the lower-class wage slaves who barely make enough to get along, even with plenty of overtime.
 
Bikewer said:
The dream was pretty simple... Home ownership, secure job, comfortable retirement. A lad could come out of high school, walk into an industrial job, and stay there until retirement. Maybe a new car every few years.
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I believe that you left out great spouse and children. Those would have been part of that same "American Dream".
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
If it is, then good. It sounds good on paper - everybody can make it big, if they just work hard enough - but it's illogical (somebody needs to clean the toilets), and the pernicious implication is that those who have not made it big haven't done so because they haven't worked hard enough.
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I don't think any of that follows. That anyone _can_ make it big doesn't imply that they will or should have.
 
Considering that the "American Dream" was only supposed to apply to white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant types, then it is just as well that the "American Dream" has died.
 
Well, first, you have to define what exactly The American Dream is. I think it's simple: The American Dream is the idea that every American has the opportunity to achieve just about anything they want to. I don't think that idea is dead. People live the Dream every day.

Many people think it's about getting rich, but I don't think that's the essence of it. You can lead a happy, fulfilling life and never be rich. The key, in my view, to fulfilling the American Dream is to work hard but work at something you love. There's nothing at all wrong with loving janitorial services, for example. I've known people who were school custodians that worked hard, saved up and started their own janitorial companies. They aren't rich, but they are happy.

What is ironic is that, in my experience, the people most likely to fulfill the American Dream are immigrants and their immediate families.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
What is the American Dream for you?
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Squeegee Beckenheim said:
If it is, then good. It sounds good on paper - everybody can make it big, if they just work hard enough - but it's illogical (somebody needs to clean the toilets), and the pernicious implication is that those who have not made it big haven't done so because they haven't worked hard enough. In other words, the poor deserve to be poor.

I think it also allows xenophobia and racism. If you truly believe that you deserve to have made it big because you've worked hard, but you haven't made it big, then whose fault is that? It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it's the fault of all of them, "coming over here and taking our jobs". It's them who have kept you down, not unfair employment laws, or unrealistic expectations built on a fallacy.

So, yeah, if the American Dream is dead, then good. I'm glad.
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Bikewer said:
I was born in ‘46, and the “middle class American dream” for the people I knew was fairly simple. We were all from blue-collar factory/manufacturing neighborhoods, with a sprinkling of small-business owners thrown in.
The dream was pretty simple... Home ownership, secure job, comfortable retirement. A lad could come out of high school, walk into an industrial job, and stay there until retirement.
Maybe a new car every few years.

Strong unions meant strong benefits and a secure pension. (Except when the pension funds were looted by mobsters...)

I was around for the start of the collapse of that dream. The industrial sector in St. Louis was rather rapidly collapsing. The plant my dad worked at, National Lead, closed down two weeks after he retired. The auto manufacturing sector locally largely left for Mexico.

I always feel a bit conflicted about the “work hard and you’ll get ahead” idea. Seems to me the folks with their butts in the butter often get there because of their parent’s wealth, and the idea of “working hard” is left to the lower-class wage slaves who barely make enough to get along, even with plenty of overtime.
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xjx388 said:
Well, first, you have to define what exactly The American Dream is. I think it's simple: The American Dream is the idea that every American has the opportunity to achieve just about anything they want to. I don't think that idea is dead. People live the Dream every day.

Many people think it's about getting rich, but I don't think that's the essence of it. You can lead a happy, fulfilling life and never be rich. The key, in my view, to fulfilling the American Dream is to work hard but work at something you love. There's nothing at all wrong with loving janitorial services, for example. I've known people who were school custodians that worked hard, saved up and started their own janitorial companies. They aren't rich, but they are happy.

What is ironic is that, in my experience, the people most likely to fulfill the American Dream are immigrants and their immediate families.
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Let me ask you this: what do you make of the shrinking middle class/wages stagnating and a college degree not being worth what it used to rhetoric?
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Ask me something specific, and I'll answer.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-class_squeeze#Costs_of_key_goods_and_services
While overall inflation has generally remained low since 2000,[26] the costs of certain categories of "big ticket" expenses have grown faster than the overall inflation rate, such as healthcare, higher education, rent, and child care. These goods and services are considered essential to a middle-class lifestyle yet are increasingly unaffordable as household income stagnates.[1]
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A key part of the American Dream in my book is the financial ability to give your children a better life than you had.
Personal and national debt is a threat to this dream.
 
From Wikipedia: In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.

Sort of an odd definition, but I think the gist of it is true, as do apparently all of the people around the world trying to get into the US.

The quibble-able parts are probably the "better and richer and fuller for everyone" part and the "regardless of social class or circumstances of birth" part". The first is hard to parse; better, fuller, and richer, than whom? And the second part, while true, leaves out the fact that social class and circumstances of birth have an effect on the facility with which one can pursue the dream.
 
Every child had a pretty good shot
To get at least as far as their old man got
But something happened on the way to that place
They threw an American flag in our face
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Billy Joel "Allen Town"
 
The Great Zaganza said:
A key part of the American Dream in my book is the financial ability to give your children a better life than you had.
Personal and national debt is a threat to this dream.
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I certainly will have a better life than my parents, who grew up in poor Southeast Asia. But I suppose "personal and national debt" can impede the path. Is there a solution politically.

sir drinks-a-lot said:
Sort of an odd definition, but I think the gist of it is true, as do apparently all of the people around the world trying to get into the US.

The quibble-able parts are probably the "better and richer and fuller for everyone" part and the "regardless of social class or circumstances of birth" part". The first is hard to parse; better, fuller, and richer, than whom? And the second part, while true, leaves out the fact that social class and circumstances of birth have an effect on the facility with which one can pursue the dream.
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Is there a political solution.
 
I would say that the American Dream is moribund. It's difficult for a person born in poverty to break out, but there are things we could do to make it easier - spend more on public education, decriminalize most drug offenses, move away from regressive taxes like those on fuel, and guarantee a living wage. We also have to change our policing. Stop and frisk and "broken windows" have to be reformed to erase the institutionalized racism.

Not only would this put more money in the hands of the poor, it would make the entire nation more productive. That would increase the standard of living for everybody.
 
Loss Leader said:
I would say that the American Dream is moribund. It's difficult for a person born in poverty to break out, but there are things we could do to make it easier - spend more on public education, decriminalize most drug offenses, move away from regressive taxes like those on fuel, and guarantee a living wage. We also have to change our policing. Stop and frisk and "broken windows" have to be reformed to erase the institutionalized racism.

Not only would this put more money in the hands of the poor, it would make the entire nation more productive. That would increase the standard of living for everybody.
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If we can only do one, THIS ONE!

I've always been a firm believer that education (superficially, a good, reality-based education) has a HUGE number of compounding effects down the line.
 
Travis said:
I don't think it ever existed. It was just a good slogan for propaganda purposes. Lots of people bought into it and that served the vested interests well but I think more and more people are waking up to the fact that the system was always rigged to keep them poor and the 1% in control of everything.
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I kind of agree with this.
Not sure when the concept or expression "American Dream" was first used or when it came about...maybe c.1890's - 1910

Packed inside the phrase "American Dream" is the puritanical work ethic.
Work in and of itself is it's own reward or if you just work hard or long enough you will be rewarded.

I can certainly envision the captains of industry historically (and maybe currently) leveraging this "American Dream" to keep cheap immigrant labor cranking out widgets.

With that said, IMO, I think the people of the world are generally better off today than at any other time in history.

and by "better off" I mean access to food, health care, education, longer lives, mobility, access to information, housing, luxury items.
 
Hellbound said:
If we can only do one, THIS ONE!

I've always been a firm believer that education (superficially, a good, reality-based education) has a HUGE number of compounding effects down the line.
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And classes designed to prepare students for the real world, like critical thinking and debate. I think courses like these would be as useful as arithmetic.
 
Nope. But I do think peoples expectations have changed. Now they expect it to be handed to them on a platter instead of working for it.

BTW all of the people I know that chase real success are doing extremely well. If you work hard there is a ton of opportunity.

I immigrated in a great part because of the economic opportunity available here. Mission accomplished, I love america.
 
NewtonTrino said:
Nope. But I do think peoples expectations have changed. Now they expect it to be handed to them on a platter instead of working for it.

BTW all of the people I know that chase real success are doing extremely well. If you work hard there is a ton of opportunity.

I immigrated in a great part because of the economic opportunity available here. Mission accomplished, I love america.
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Re: the highlighted, IMO there's a little bit of "get off my lawn" in that view :o :p. Looking at how hard my high school senior nephew and niece have worked in high school, how laser-focused they are on college and career and comparing it to my US-based peers in the mid '80's, there's no shortage of hard work there.

My personal view regarding the "American Dream" is that it's demonstrable that social and economic mobility is significantly lower now than it was back in the 50's, 60's and 70's. It's not impossible for someone born into the lowest quintile to get out of it, but it is more difficult and becoming moreso.

One thing that has changed is the skillset which would enable people to achieve social mobility. In the past, skilled manual labour was a surefire way to achieve social mobility, these days this kind of job is less prevalent. Instead social mobility is achieved through entrepreneurship, skills and knowledge. Those last two place more of an emphasis on education which is something that can tend to be underfunded.

It's also a completely different world out there. Globalisation has meant that there is far more competition for everyone at every level and a lot of jobs which were previously a ticket to social mobility have been commoditised (and become lower paying) or indeed have been automated out of existence.

These days IMO it's much harder for someone who is hard working and diligent without being particularly skilled or innovative to progress than it was because the kind(s) of jobs where they would have thrived in the past no longer exist, don't pay as well and aren't as secure (and so don't allow long-term decisions). YMMV.

I count myself very lucky. I'm UK-based and caught the tail-end of free university education but also benefited from the opening up of the UK economy. I'm lucky enough to have the right combination of natural assets to thrive in the IT service economy - I'd have made a useless coal miner - but there was enough opportunity around that there was enough opportunity around to compensate for my natural laziness :o.

If I was coming through the system now, I'm not so sure I'd do so well - I wouldn't want the education debt and I doubt I'm smart enough to overcome my laziness any more :o.
 
Hellbound said:
Eh, debate I dunno. Critical thinking definitely. Teach them how to learn, rather than what.
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I mentioned debate so students can learn about fallacious arguments, I think that's missing from a huge section of the general population. People of course often base their entire attitude toward something based on cringeworthy reasoning.:boggled:
 
Venom said:
I mentioned debate so students can learn about fallacious arguments, I think that's missing from a huge section of the general population. People of course often base their entire attitude toward something based on cringeworthy reasoning.:boggled:
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Ah, well, a critical thinking class should cover fallacious arguments, as well. Mine did in college :)
 
Loss Leader said:
I would say that the American Dream is moribund. It's difficult for a person born in poverty to break out, but there are things we could do to make it easier - spend more on public education, decriminalize most drug offenses, move away from regressive taxes like those on fuel, and guarantee a living wage. We also have to change our policing. Stop and frisk and "broken windows" have to be reformed to erase the institutionalized racism.

Not only would this put more money in the hands of the poor, it would make the entire nation more productive. That would increase the standard of living for everybody.
Click to expand...

None of this would do anything. As someone who is living the American Dream, relying on government is what the problem is. Those who do rely on government will always stay in the lower classes. A key aspect of getting out of poverty is education but only for the person who wants to USE that education. The next step up from that is getting a loan. Borrowing money is harder then it has ever been. It is the single most important tool in getting out of poverty.
 
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