The Myth of the American Dream

     

 

     The themes of self-reliance and personal responsibility as a means to amassing unlimited success has been an appealing story for more than a century. The self-made man myth, we regularly read or hear about success stories like Bill Gates, Jeff Besos, Michael Dell, Richard Branson, Mark Cuban and a host of others.  Not only is there little truth in the belief, but this oversimplified story has created an indelible view that there is neither responsibility nor the need to take care of one another, including those most vulnerable among us. It’s every person for himself or herself. And many self-help books and gurus have supplemented the fictional stories by emphasizing the values of independence and taking personal responsibility.

     A “self-made man” (later expanded to include “self-made women”) is a classic phrase first coined on February 2, 1832 by United States senator Henry Clay who referred to the self-made man in the United States senate, to describe individuals in the manufacturing sector whose success lay within the individuals themselves, not with outside conditions.  The term American Dream was first used in James Truslow Adam’s 1931 best selling book, The Epic of America. Adams define the concept as “the dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with an opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.”

Commonly four tenets of the American Dream are:

    Everyone regardless of origin or status can attain the American Dream.
    The American Dream is a hopefulness for success.
    The American Dream is possible through actions that are under the individual’s direct control.
    Because of the associations of success and virtue, the American Dream comes true.

     The U.S. is viewed by most of its citizens as a “land of opportunity.” According to this belief, anyone who comes to America have the opportunity to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” and succeed as long as they work hard and persevere. Those who are most worthy of America’s bounty are the meritorious. This social ideal promulgates the belief that, “those who are the most talented, the hardest working and the most virtuous get and should get the most rewards.

     Hard work is seen as a powerful factor and a necessary element for acquiring the American Dream. National surveys have found that hard work consistently scores among the top three factors necessary for success, and ranks with education and knowing the right people as its closet competitors. According to one survey,about 77% Americans believe that hard work is often or very often the reason why people are rich in America. More than a third of all Americans — and more than half of all Republicans — believe that the rich are rich because they worked harder than everyone else. When pressed for proof, they usually point to surveys showing that the rich spend more hours working and fewer hours in “leisure activities” than everyone else. A 46% plurality believes that most rich people “are wealthy mainly because they know the right people or were born into wealthy families.” But nearly as many have a more favorable view of the rich: 43% say wealthy people became rich “mainly because of their own hard work, ambition or education.

Most of the super rich were born with advantages, and have benefited from a level of privilege unknown to the vast majority of Americans.” Most of those on the list all grew up in substantial privilege with inheritances up to $1 million, and some of those have inheritances well over $1 million, and a couple even had inherited wealth over $50 million.  There is little evidence that being honest results in economic success.  White collar crime in the form of insider trading, embezzlement, tax and insurance fraud is hardly a reflection of integrity and honesty. Playing by the rules probably works to suppress prospects for economic success, compared to those who ignore the rules.

Financial regulations allow predatory lending and abusive credit-card practices that transfer money from the bottom to the top. So do bankruptcy laws that provide priority for derivatives.  Full-time minimum wage workers cannot afford a two-bedroom rental anywhere in the U.S. and cannot afford a one-bedroom rental in 95% of U.S. counties, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s annual “Out of Reach” report.  In fact, the average minimum wage worker in the U.S. would need to work almost 97 hours per week to afford a fair market rate two-bedroom and 79 hours per week to afford a one-bedroom, NLIHC calculates. That’s well over two full-time jobs just to be able to afford a two-bedroom rental.

 

 Let’s stop perpetuating this myth of the self-made individual. And let’s start rebuilding the American dream by creating opportunities for all, not just those who are already wealthy, privileged, and well-connected.