Q: Is the 'American Dream' permanently dead?

[Writer]

[sendero]

1. Nothing is "permanent".

.... but it will take a literal revolution to fix America now.

[indepat]

2. Yes, unless burgeoning income inequality is snuffed out by the Federal government rather than

being be promoted by the government's tax and other policies. First, implement a very progressive tax scheme which would tend to discourage some of this heinous income disparity by taxing the greatest part of higher executive and other compensation. Second, make all earned income subject to social security payroll taxes. I hear the naysayers blasting this as socialistic balderdash, but the proof of this is compellingly told in the body of government-released data when just a smidgen of critical analysis is applied. Otherwise, the American dream will soon likely be swept down the tubes perhaps not to be restored perhaps for several generations. ;)

[saltpoint]

3. After the Second World War the American dream seemed

to mean a prosperous life, that is, if you were a white person interested in raising a family. Poor whites and blacks did not appear to fall within the concentric circle. There were marches in the streets. There were harsh and jagged words. There were police dogs and ax handles.

It is a terrible and unjust thing to strive toward a prosperous standard of living but at the expense of the poor and the disenfranchised.

I'd like to see the "American Dream" reconfigured for the decades ahead to mean less emphasis on material well-being and far greater emphasis on economic democracy and cultural inclusion.

[Hannah Bell]

11. no, the fact that they marched in the streets indicated they still believed in the dream & had hope.

and it wasn't only about material prosperity if you'll recall; it was also about e.g. the right to vote -- basic rights of citizenship.

[saltpoint]

14. Forgive me. I was using actual facts to reach

conclusions about U.S. Americans' standard of living during the period following the Second World War.

I had no idea in hell that in doing so I was stepping on your far-Left toes.

[Hannah Bell]

15. forgive me. i had the impression you were interested in discussion rather than denigrating others.

[Zephie]

22. Can we not use the term far-left in a derogatory manner?

Considering this is a leftwing website and all.

[provis99]

27. this is not a leftwing website. It is a Democratic website. There is a difference.

[Zephie]

28. I'll accept that

My wording was not the best. Still, we are on the left, and that's not an appropriate way to be dealing with disagreements.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

31. I think you're contradicting yourself.

The whole *point* of economic democracy is material well-being. The logical conclusion of buying into the idea that consumption and material wealth are not good things is that there is no reason to try to make them available to all; if being poor is not undesirable and being rich is not desirable then there is no reason to strive for a juster society.

[L0oniX]

4. It's alive when you are dreaming.

[Arugula Latte]

5. Without campaign finance reform I'm afraid we're dead in the water.

[RagAss]

6. America itself is dead.

[Octafish]

37. RIP, er, RIW: November 22, 1963

Former FBI Agent Says Oswald Didn't Kill Kennedy

And, unfortunately, there were many signs of terminal illness from birth.

[Duer 157099]

7. No. When we stop dreaming, then they've won.

Fuck them, I won't let them win.

[lamp_shade]

8. +1. I see there are 32 (so far) here that are willing to "let them win". A shame.

[proteus_lives]

9. Seems like some people can't hold their water.

It ain't over until you're dead.

America has seen worse and prevailed.

We all need to get up each morning and fight as hard as we can. Like always, there is no other choice.

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. It never really existed in the first place.

It was never anything more than a myth. 'Work hard and you can make it! It doesn't matter where you came from or who your parents were; this is the land of opportunity!' never really worked, except for a very few people (enough to make the myth tangible for people who wanted to believe in it, anyway).

The social mobility of the postwar era is a thing of the past, as is generally the idea that children of the present generation can expect to have a substantially better lifestyle than their parents. (The income of the average American worker peaked, in real terms, in 1973 and has been in decline since).

[Greyhound]

12. Please define the American Dream. I've seen several answers to the question,

and each one, I'm sure, has an internal definition of it, but how many are anything alike?

Was it ever any more than a dream, and if not, how could it die?

[Toucano]

20. I need a definition, too.

I've never heard it described as anything particularly American.

[Jamastiene]

24. I always thought it was the dream to own a home,

live free, die free, and maybe have a little fun along the way while doing it.

I do believe different people have different beliefs about what the American Dream is. I think that is the point though, isn't it? The idea is supposed to be that we are free to dream of whatever we want to do and work to achieve that dream.

I can only speak for myself. For me, the dream is to own my own home and make it sturdier and more energy efficient. It is definitely a fixer upper. If I am lucky, one day I will be able to pay it off. I'm over halfway there, but we all know how things go sometimes. You hope you'll own your home one day, but it can be taken away at the drop of a hat, nowadays, it seems.

Actually, your question would make a great OP all by itself. Just let people define their own idea of what the American Dream is.

[Toucano]

36. Home ownership may be incompatible with "live free, die free".

LOL! Not just these days.

I read something recently that the financier class pushed home ownership in the United States, this "dream", because a worker with a mortgage is far less likely to strike or protest working conditions than someone who rents.

It would seem to have merit since as home ownership expanded, the unions diminished and dissolved. Of course, that doesn't prove a cause and effect relationship.

[Greyhound]

40. Exactly. I think it was either Rockefeller or Morgan that said, "If you want to control a man,

give him a mortgage."

[COLGATE4]

25. My understanding of the American Dream was to believe that

your children would have a better and more prosperous life than you did. On that basis, the American Dream is pretty well gone, now.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

29. If that's what it is then it was always pretty much doomed, just on mathematical grounds.

The more prosperous a society becomes, the harder it is to make it more prosperous still.

[Toucano]

35. Maybe the definition of "prosperous" changes

If we could reach a point where everyone has "enough", we could stop measuring prosperity in terms of material goods and define it in other terms like longevity, happiness, relationships, minutes spent laughing and creating....

[Donald Ian Rankin]

39. There is no such thing as "enough"; contentment is reached asymptotically.

The more wealth you have, the fewer things that you want and don't have, but could if you had more wealth there are, but there are always some. Plus, one of the most important things money can be spent on is healthcare, and that will always be improvable by more expensive research.

[Toucano]

41. Not true. Enough is totally achievable.

The study, which analyzed Gallup surveys of 450,000 Americans in 2008 and 2009, suggested that there were two forms of happiness: day-to-day contentment (emotional well-being) and overall “life assessment,” which means broader satisfaction with one’s place in the world. While a higher income didn’t have much impact on day-to-day contentment, it did boost people’s “life assessment.”

Now we have more details from the study, conducted by the Princeton economist Angus Deaton and famed psychologist Daniel Kahneman. It turns out there is a specific dollar number, or income plateau, after which more money has no measurable effect on day-to-day contentment.

The magic income: $75,000 a year. As people earn more money, their day-to-day happiness rises. Until you hit $75,000. After that, it is just more stuff, with no gain in happiness.

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/09/07/the-perfect-salary-for-happiness-75000-a-year/

When understood in conjunction with this..."enough" is undeniably possible.

RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

[smalll]

13. Dead Dreams: The New Normal. /nt

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

16. I guess it depends...

Who is up for killing millions and reducing the rest of the industrialized world to rubble all over again?

[Uzybone]

17. there was never an American dream

there was a middle class white american dream...and that was killed in the 80's

[Junkdrawer]

18. It's vacationing in China.....

Once we're full of desperately poor willing to work for 50 cents/day, it may return.

[kctim]

19. Maybe

to those who expect it to be handed to them.

For the rest of us? Not hardly.

[Toucano]

21. I voted Yes because I assume you mean the American lifestyle

that evolved after World War II.

Yeah, that's dead because it was unsustainable.

No one should seek to resurrect it.

[slackmaster]

23. I like these results. The more people who think it's dead, the more of it is left for the rest.

:hi:

[lunatica]

26. The Beaver, Wally, June and Ward don't exist

The American Dream is a myth.

[Jack Sprat]

30. Only if it continues drifting

in the direction of right wing corporate policy. Citizens United signalled an indication that it is over, or will be if that trend is not reversed.

[blindpig]

32. It never lived.

Nothing but Cold War propaganda. Funny how the slide of down the tubes really got going when the Cold War ended.

The 'American Dream' was guarded by Soviet tanks.

[DailyGrind51]

33. The American Delusion isn't, unfortunately!

[JackRiddler]

34. That one is, but you can always dream a better one.

[SoCalDem]

38. I was just a blip on the radar, and now we are "beyond" it.

In reality, it was a "thank you" to the returning WWII vets who were NOT going to return happily to what they had before the war.

They had large families and good jobs, so it lasted quite a while, but we have run out of gas..and cannot keep it going any longer..

It all lasted long enough to see those WWII vets & their contemporaries lead a good life,but they used it all up..

Good farmers know not to eat the seed-corn, but we did and now we are SOL.

[deutsey]

42. As George Carlin said: "You have to be asleep to believe it." n/t

[hunter]

43. Yes. It was a dream. Our kids won't have it better than we did.

Peak oil, climate change, overpopulation, resource depletion... the grim future has arrived and it's kicking in the door.

If we don't get our crap together and find a way to live in a sustainable manner then Mother Earth will deal with us in the same way she deals with any sort of exponential growth. It won't be pretty.

For billions of years innovative life forms have been popping up, growing exponentially, and crashing about until some sort of stability is achieved. Humans are nothing special. The earth will go on with or without us and we are bound by the same population dynamics as any other creature. We will live and die like swarms of locust, we will become extinct, or we will settle down into a stable population.