If you’ve ever been in an argument with a right wing idealist you would know that their world exists in a vacuum. Essentially, they believe America is the greatest country in the world and any ill will spoken toward the good old USA is generally met with harsh words, an odd look or just plain anger. If you actually mention that another country may do something a little better than America… well, that's right in line with treason to these people. And almost on queue, you would be asked to move to said country.
Let’s get one thing clear, I love America. There is no other place on Earth that I want to live. I have never once thought about moving to another country. This is my home and it’s my country. But having a worldly view has many benefits. For one, you just come off a bit more intelligent. But, and more importantly, it gives you the freedom to study what other countries do right (as well as what they do wrong) and figure out how America can do it better. Without the ability to understand your flaws, you can’t progress.
“The American Dream” is a phrase that everyone in this country is familiar with. It’s the basis for everything that is America. It is what has allowed us to become the great country we are. But everyday it seems like that American dream is more of an American fairy tale. For many Americans, it just doesn’t exist anymore… at least not in this country.
The fundamental basis of the American dream is upward mobility. Where a person can do better than his or her parents did from an economic perspective. It’s what brought people over to this country from far away lands. America offered hope. But that hope is now gone for most middle and lower class Americans. Over the last 30 years there has been a substantial drop in median household incomes. And when we look at other countries, countries who have embraced a more socialist economic model, it’s clear that we now enjoy much less economic mobility than other developed nations. In short, middle class people of the world are more likely to live The German Dream, The Canadian Dream, The Norwegian Dream and The Finnish Dream than they are The American Dream.
Ben Bernake once stated, “Without the possibility of unequal [economic] outcomes tied to difference in effort and skill, the economic incentive for productive behavior would be eliminated.” I find this statement interesting because when looking at the productivity vs. income figures over the last 40 years, worker productivity has increased dramatically while family incomes have essentially remained flat. Looking even further, the real separation of income vs productivity begins during the early 1980s when the Republican hero was elected President and a dramatic separation occurs in the early 2000’s when Reagan’s lackey won his Presidential bid. So while Mr. Bernake’s comments make absolute sense, our market economy hasn’t quite lived up to the "productivity equals financial growth" theory.
So while the big argument is that socialism kills the benefits of the supply side economics, I would argue that unbridled capitalism has killed The American Dream – and have the figures to back it up. The truth is that capitalist economics no longer provides the hope of the American dream and may just be leading us to the next Great Depression. The truth is that men in their thirties have less income than their fathers did when they were in their thirties and income growth is covered up with smoke an mirrors by stating (a fact, I might add) that family income is greater now than in our parents’ generation. What this doesn’t tell you is that more women are working. Naturally this would lead someone to believe that family incomes should be about 30%-50% higher now than 30 years ago because of the drastic increase of two income households. In actuality, family incomes have only increased by 9%. American’s added an additional wage earner to their families, yet income growth has only grown by 9%! The math just doesn’t add up.
I can’t leave this article without telling you all that the American Dream is still alive for some Americans… chances are it’s not you, though. In the last 40 years income growth for the bottom 20% has grown by about 10% (no dream here), but for the top 1%, income growth has been closer to 180%. At least we can all sleep at night knowing there are some winners out there. If your back hurts, it because these winners are stepping on it to get that Dream.
