The American Dream has become, at best, an illusion; at worst, a Nightmare.
The presumed goal of Capitalism is to accumulate capital. Instead, it has become a system wherein one accumulates debt. There is little difference between a “wage-slave” and a “debt-slave”. They are both forms of slavery.
Colonial American was built largely on the labor and sweat of African slaves and indentured servants from England. Today, we are building a whole new class of servants/slaves… they are indebted slaves.
For all the “talk” about the need for an “educated workforce” (let along an educated electorate), college tuition has been allowed to rise much faster an inflation (similar to medical costs, not incidentally), which means that students, unless they come from rich families, must take on more and more debt in order to get a college education. So, if you get sick or want to increase your chances of getting a “good job”, you are forced to take on more and more debt so that you are further enslaved to our capitalistic system.
In spite of all the jingoistic rhetoric about “freedom” coming from our “political leaders”, what we really have is just another Capitalist system of “slave-making”; both individually and as a Nation. [“I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.”] How is indebted servitude any better than indentured servitude?