American Dream CaseEssay Preview: American Dream CaseReport this essayThe “American Dream” has lots of clichĂ©s and can mean so many things to so many people. Whatever the meaning may be, it is deep within each of us. However, it often times seems as if the American Dream is simply political propaganda. Some days its as if the politicians, corporate leaders of the world and the media are trying to convince us that the American Dream exists. It does exist and it is clear in everyday success stories heard around the World. President Barack Obama is the epitome of someone achieving the American Dream. When it comes to the topic of the American dream, most of us will readily agree that in some degree, it does exist and that it is still alive. Where this agreement usually ends, however is on the question of how the American dream is obtained and if it is available to anyone. While some are convinced that you can achieve the American dream and secure a comfortable lifestyle for yourself by hard work and education alone, others maintain that no matter how hard you work and how far your education runs, sometimes you just simply luck up with various opportunities, blessings or good fortune in life. Some believe that the American Dream is in the hand of politicians or another party of persuasion. However, I believe that the American dream is developed in ones youth, usually with a sense of right from wrong once influenced by parents and affirmed by culture.
For Generations, parents have told their children about “the American dream.” Basically it has meant building a life based on the foundational principles that created and have sustained America for more than 200 years. By doing so, one might reasonably expect a new generation to achieve a better life than their parents and grandparents experienced.
For many of us, the liberty is our first expression of the United States, along with prosperity, attracting numerous immigrants to it year after year. Prior to the 21th century, the American Dream, which means that the opportunity for peoples children to grow up and receive a good education and career would be gained without artificial barriers, had created a brand new world for those, who used to be limited due to class, caste, religion, race, or ethnicity, and their offsprings. Historian James Truslow Adams popularized the phrase “American Dream” in his 1931 book Epic of America: It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.
Despite its foregoing contribution, the American Dream has been criticized by some commentators because the modern American wealth structure still perpetuates racial and class inequalities between generations. Heather Beth Johnson states that edge are not always connected to individual successes, but often to prior position in a social group. Whats more, a research suggests that “the United States and Britain show less intergenerational income-based social mobility than the Nordic countries and Canada.” The criticism reached its peak after the World War II. The Beat Generation wrote a good deal of literatures to represent their disappointment to the country. Nevertheless, the blame toward American Dreams could be explained. It is partly because European governments, worried that their best young people would leave for America, distributed posters like this to frighten them, and also the war has lead low morale
(1). According to the Beat Generation, we need to be more self-aware and to take the lead with the others. If successful, we need to show leadership, creativity, the ability to understand the wider human world and to make social reforms. And this is where the U.S. is more successful than the Nordic countries or Canada. But the problem is not just that most Americans have fewer social ties among their descendants but that the national leaders do not have the ability to see the world in a practical way.
Some argue that America is still a nation of immigrants and those already coming to the United States need a different approach, which they do not have. This is a myth. But not all the haters are. Some are saying that by putting money into the pockets of those who are already here, our social and economic status will not matter or that our parents will end up as immigrants. I am simply saying that I consider the issue of wealth an important one in this country.
Yet some people do not agree. On the one hand, the issue of wealth can be debated through a variety of perspectives and they should all come together in a way that can be beneficial to our future. I would ask that many Americans come to this country and live comfortably, in a normal setting but feel this way only when they have some sense of justice. On the other hand, these are economic issues which the American Dream needs a lot of solutions. We must come together on these issues and the answers in this debate are very important. The economic realities of today are very important and so should our culture too.
© 2009 William S. Wolff, PhD www.pbs.org/wolff/
This article was originally published on William S. Wolff, PhD, the author of The Greatest American Dream: The Road Beyond Poverty, From the Road of The Dream into America:
‘In 1965, George P. Welles of the University of California and Harvard did almost nothing to create the American Dream. In 1979, Ronald Reagan signed several major social reform programs before the beginning of the Great Recession, while Clinton had a policy of providing a lot of assistance. But with these policies, the government was in direct jeopardy of ever coming close to the U.S.-backed Dreaming economy.’
[4]] [5] ‘The country’s economic fortunes were not in the least influenced by ‘the Great Recession,’ but by the massive debt of the past generation (many of them inherited from the Great Depression, too).[6]
[9] [12] In the American Dream, the United States has a rich history. It’s a story of perseverance and a belief in the promise of American ideals, a story of optimism, of greatness. Our prosperity and our security have been built on the foundations of a promise — that of the family.
I think the question is whether we can live well and give our children an American dream. That is part of the story of our country — but can it truly be a story of happiness?
• Charles H. Guttman is a PhD candidate at Penn, an author for American Journal of Public Affairs, and an adjunct professor at Northeastern University. His academic credentials include a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and a Master’s of Social Work from Northeastern University. He received his PhD in economics from William Mitchell College before he became a professor at Duke University.
(c) Copyright 2013. American Economic Review. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from American Economic Review. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from American Economic Review. Any views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of American Economic Review or its staff members.