Over the past few years of economic torpor and social despair there's been a lot of discussion about the death of the American dream. This shouldn't be surprising. In a time when people feel they can't keep up or are falling behind, it's hard to have faith in the idea that everyone can achieve a base level of security and provide for their kids to do better than they did. That was always the deal for working-class Americans, immigrants and middle-class alike.
Generally, people agree that the lack of social and economic mobility we see today -- necessities for the achievement of the American dream -- is a result of the dramatic income inequality that's grown dramatically over the last couple of decades. There's even a name for this phenomenon called the Great Gatsby Curve, which simply shows that the more income inequality there is, the less social mobility there is. As Tim Noah of the New Republic explained:
Economists have long suspected that you can't really experience ever-growing income inequality without experiencing a decline in Horatio Alger-style upward mobility because (to use a frequently-employed metaphor) it's harder to climb a ladder when the rungs are farther apart. [Economist Alan] Krueger calculates based on the Gatsby curve (admittedly, somewhat speculatively) that "the persistence in the advantages and disadvantages of income passed from parents to the children" will "rise by about a quarter for the next generation as a result of the rise in inequality that the U.S. has seen in the last 25 years
It's doubtful that more than a handful of average Americans have heard of the Great Gatsby Curve but they do know that they aren't getting ahead at the same pace as their parents did. Earlier generations started out with much less (there was less to have!), but the level of advancement over the course of a lifetime for average working people, whether factory workers or teachers or small business owners, was measurable and real. People who never thought of going to college had all their children graduate from university. Couples whose parents always lived in small urban dwellings bought big houses in the suburbs and retired from their jobs knowing they could live comfortably in their old age. Each generation did a bit better than the last, gaining more opportunity and living with more financial security. It wasn't sexy but it was solid.
According to polling, including this latest one by the Public Religion Research Institute, the bottom has fallen out of the American dream for a whole lot of people. Only 42 percent of Americans still believe in it today and it's not getting better:
Other polling has shown similar results. That's a sad comment on our country.
Oddly, that same poll shows that far more Republicans than Democrats believe the American dream is still operative, 55 percent to 32 percent. If you wonder why that is, perhaps it's because many Republicans have a completely different definition of the American dream. They don't see it as a middle-class goal at all, much of it made possible by the promise of a decent education and secure retirement, guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. No, they believe that the American dream is getting filthy rich. It's not much different than winning the lottery or getting a slot on the Real Housewives of Galt's Gulch.
Here's a good example of how Republicans explain it to the rubes, in a piece called "In Defense of the Wealthy and the American Dream":
The United States has 422 billionaires, nearly four times that of 2nd place China. We have a 15.3 trillion dollar economy. We have a standard of living that is the envy of the world. Why?
We have the American Dream and other countries don’t. This American Dream exists because we are free to pursue unlimited prosperity. What fuels the desire to pursue the American Dream is the right to keep the wealth you produce. Property rights are fundamental to the existence of the American Dream and to the continued success of our nation. It was intentional. Our founding fathers built a nation around individual liberty and individual property rights. Without these rights, there would be no 422 billionaires, no 15.3 trillion dollar economy, no high standard of living. These rights are the very foundation of America. Liberty and the right to keep your property (wealth) have, for generations, separated America from the rest of the world. It is the reason America has been considered by so many around the world as “the land of opportunity”.
He calls these 422 billionaires the "American Dream Achievers." And if you too want to be an American Dream Achiever you must agree not to tax them or regulate their businesses or in any other way try to reduce the wealth inequality we know is causing virtually everyone else to stagnate economically. But have no fear, you can totally do it! Why, if you just work hard you can be the 423rd billionaire -- out of 313 million Americans!
A few months ago David Leonhardt of the New York Times published a story that showed exactly where the real American dream -- enough opportunity and security to live a decent life and make it possible for your kids to succeed -- is in the most trouble. And ironically, it turns out that one specific group of people is being scammed by this absurd con game more than any other: Southern Republicans.
The results of this week's poll on Americans' pessimism about the American dream doesn't break the data out by region. It does break it out by race and class, however, and it's perhaps unsurprising that the most pessimistic, by a long shot, are the white working class and African-Americans. It's fair to guess that an awful lot of those working-class whites and African-Americans hail from that red area on the map where their futures and their children's futures really are grim.
And that's largely thanks to the policies put in place by GOP politicians who are intent upon delivering for those rare "American Dream Achievers" -- and nobody else. You can't blame the African-Americans. They know the score and don't vote for these dream killers. The Southern white working class is another story. They're participating in their own demise.
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