The American Dream

The American Dream is the faith held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage, and determination one can achieve financial prosperity. These were values held by many early European settlers, and have been passed on to subsequent generations. What the American Dream has become is a question under constant discussion, and some believe that it has led to an emphasis on material wealth as a measure of success and/or happiness.

The origin of the American Dream stems from the departure in government and economics from the models of the Old World. This allowed unprecedented freedom, especially the possibility of dramatic upward social mobility. Additionally, from the American Revolutionary War well into the later half of the nineteenth century, many of America's physical resources were unclaimed and held out the promise of land ownership and lucky investment in land or industry. The development of the Industrial Revolution combined with the great natural resources of the enormous and as yet unsettled continent created the possibility of achieving wealth.

Many early American prospectors headed west of the Rocky Mountains to buy acres of cheap land in hopes of finding deposits of gold. The American Dream was a driving factor not only in the gold rushes of the mid to late 1800s, but also in the waves of immigration throughout that century and the following. For example, impoverished western Europeans escaping the Irish potato famines in Ireland, the Highland clearances in Scotland and the aftermath of Napoleon in the rest of Europe came to America to escape a poor quality of life at home. They wanted to embrace the promise of financial security and constitutional freedom they had heard existed so widely in the United States. A sizable number of Chinese and Japanese immigrants also arrived in the U.S. in the mid 19th century seeking the American Dream. This led to the founding of several Chinatowns in locations such as San Francisco and New York City. Many immigrants from these countries also worked as laborers on the First Transcontinental Railroad.

During the mid-to-late ninteenth century prolific dime novel writer Horatio Alger, Jr. became famous for his novels that idealized the American Dream. His novels about down-and-out bootblacks who were able to achieve wealth and success helped entrench the dream within popular culture. Nearing the twentieth century, major industrialist personalities became the new model of the American Dream, many beginning life in the humblest of conditions but later controlling enormous corporations and fortunes. Perhaps most notable here were the great American capitalists Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. This acquisition of great wealth demonstrated to many that if you had talent, intelligence, and a willingness to work extremely hard, you were likely to be a success in life as a result.

Throughout the 19th century, immigrants fled the monarchies of Western Europe and their post-feudal economies, which actively oppressed the peasant class. These economic systems required high levels of taxation, which stymied development. The American economy, however, was built up by people who were consciously free of these constraints. Settlement in the new world provided hope for egalitarianism. Martin Luther King invoked the American Dream in what is perhaps his most famous speech: "Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American Dream."

The American dream, along with escape from persecution or war in one's home country, has always been the primary reason for immigrants wanting to come to America. Throughout its history, America has been seen as a place with high opportunity for entrepreneurs relative to other regions of the world. By the turn of the 21th century, the promise of the American Dream had begun to lure substantial numbers of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Huge numbers of Italians, Poles, Greeks, Jews, Russians and others came to find work in industrial cities such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit. This wave of immigration continued until the outbreak of World War I. Following the war, nativist sentiment led to new restrictions on immigration, which would continue until the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965, which allowed larger scale immigration to resume.

The American Dream appears to have enduring appeal to many in other countries. The United States remains a magnet for immigrants today, receiving 1 million legal entrants annually--the highest such rate in the world. Whereas past generations of immigrants tended to come from Europe, a majority of contemporary immigrants hail from Latin America and Asia. Unknown numbers of undocumented immigrants also enter the country annually, chiefly from across the southern border with Mexico.

In the 20th century, the American Dream had its challenges. The Depression caused widespread hardship during the Thirties, and was almost a reverse of the dream for those directly affected. Racial instability did not disappear, and in some parts of the country racial violence was almost commonplace. There was concern about the undemocratic campaign known as McCarthyism carried on against suspected Communists.

The concept of the American Dream has been the subject of much criticism by, for example, Joseph Stiglitz. The main criticism is that the American Dream is misleading. These critics say that, for various reasons, it simply is not possible for everyone to become prosperous through determination and hard work alone. The consequences of this belief can include the poor feeling that it is their fault that they are not successful. It can also result in less effort towards helping the poor since their poverty is seen as "proof" of their laziness. The concept of the American Dream also ignores other factors of success such as the family and wealth one is born into and inheritable traits such as intelligence (although proponents of the dream would claim that starting wealth is irrelevant because of the belief that there is no level of poverty one cannot rise from with hard work).

The American Dream is seen by critics as being somewhat superficial or meaningless. Many literary works level exactly that criticism at the American Dream, such as Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman. The play, a classic American work of literature, finds the main character Willy Loman struggling to come to grips with the fact that his American Dream is unattainable. Such arguments are essentially rehashes of the old adage "Money doesn't buy happiness", and that perhaps not everyone's dream should be to achieve great monetary gain.

In particular some of the criticisms are:

* In the U.S. it was sometimes more difficult for children of poor families to attend college; not attending college set upper limits on their career success, and it is difficult to earn a bachelors' degree — necessary for many fields — in one's free time once one begins working full-time. This criticism has been answered by the wide availability of financial aid, and the poorest students are increasingly being given guarantees of a high proportion (up to 100%) of grants – removing the obligation to pay back any of the costs to the university which educates them. Harvard University became the first private university to offer 100% grants to accepted students from families earning less than $40,000 a year in 2003, and in 2004 the University of Virginia became the first public university to offer a similar full-grant program, on incomes up to 200% of the poverty line, or about $37,700 at that time.

* Wealth retention – Certain laws allow the wealthy to keep more of their money. For example, the recent lessing of inheritance tax and capital gains taxes may work to further solidify wealth.
* Economies of scale – It can be difficult to successfully start a business. One reason is because of the economies of scale necessary to survive in a commoditized market – though many markets today are not commoditized.
* Genetic lottery – Research has suggested that features like IQ may give certain people some advantages over others when it comes to making smart business decisions or career choices.
* Ethical differences – As in other countries, actions considered ethical vary between Americans. For example, a CEO who sees certain stock options as excessive monetary gain would find it harder to attain great wealth than a more unscrupulous CEO.

All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.