[PDF] The Myth of American Dream doctrine is but a myth

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World Scientific News

9 (2015) 1-16 EISSN 2392-2192

The Myth of American Dream

Jacek Tittenbrun

Chair of History of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences,

Telephone: +48 61 2977510

E-mail address: jacek@amu.edu.pl

ABSTRACT

The American Dream is a deep-seated element of collective American consciousness. Yet, contrary to any culturalist approaches, there is a need to go beyond the subjective to consider the

relationship of the former to the objective social relations. And from this point of view it turns out that

the U.S. society fares very poorly on the scale of social mobility and equality. In other words, the said

doctrine is but a myth bearing no correspondence to reality. Keywords: American Dream, social stratification, social mobility, income gap, wealth gap, subjectivism

1. INTRODUCTION

There is scarcely any other component of popular culture and mass consciousness that could be said to rule over such a multitude of minds worldwide, not only in the U.S., though it is in the latter country, sure enough, where the American dream is most widespread. At the same time, from a social-scientific viewpoint, the said collective representation, to use Durkheim' term, constitutes a dramatic example of a deep disjunction between consciousness and reality.

2. DEFINITION

The American Dream is supposed to mean that through hard work and perseverance, even the poorest people can make Hargreaves 2013). Let us comment on the spot on the fundamental, yet unrecognised incongruence of the above statement the poorest: and the like expressions refer to social stratification; meanwhile, the continuation of the claim suggests it concerns the purported middle class (my

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emphasis). It is only social stratification that can be described in hierarchical terms (as

"above" in the above citation), socio-economic class structures are usually far more complex systems which cannot be reduced to such simplistic images (cf. Tittenbrun 2015).

3. EVIDENCE

Meanwhile, such a belief is not supported by evidence-it's actually harder to move up in America than it is in most other advanced nations. It's easier to rise above the class you're born into in countries like Japan, Germany, Australia, and the Scandinavian nations, according to research from University of Ottawa economist and current Russell Sage Foundation Fellow Miles Corak. Among the major developed countries, only in Italy and the United Kingdom is there less economic mobility, according to Corak. The research measures "intergenerational earnings elasticity" - a type of economic mobility that measures the correlation between what one's parents make and what one makes one generation later- in a number of different countries around the world .1 No wonder that the aforementioned pair of economists delving-as they did-in the issue of economic inequality- are keen to debunk the myth concerned: "For decades, we believed that hard work and an education would get us ahead and catapult ourselves to a better life. We indulged ourselves with illusions of growth, and the idea that most of us, if not all of us, would continue to achieve a higher and higher standard of living. We did not understand that we were being fed economic fairy tales. If we had paused before taking another slug of the kool-aid, we might have thought to ask who among us were truly benefiting" (Esposito, Tse

2014). In a word, If America is a ladder, the rungs have been moved further apart.

4. CAUSES

The answer to the question why some countries have a greater degree of mobility than others, is not that difficult. At the heart of the matter is inequality. The greater disparities in wealth and income, the wider differences of life chances between children of the various classes and estates.2 The privileged classes and estates are in a position to pay for tutors or extracurricular activities that poorer families cannot. The disadvantaged classes are also handicapped as far as their possession of cultural resourses is concerned, which is likely to impact on the educational performance of their children as well. And this is all the more relevant that today education matters a lot more than it did in, say, the generation of our grandparents in terms of getting a good job. "The rich can pump a lot more money into their kids' future," said Corak. This helps explain why countries like China, India and many South American nations also exhibit relatively little economic mobility. 1 less mobile than it was in the 1970s. A child born in the poorest 20 percent

A child born in the poorest 20 percent

of families in 1986 had a 9 percent chance of reaching the top 20 percent as an adult, the study found roughly

the same odds as in 1971" (RUGABER, Boak 2014).

2 Under socio-economic structuralism, as the author's general analytic framework is termed, the concept of social

estate refers to a unit of social differentiation in the non-economic sphere, based-by analogy to socio-economic

lasses-upon non-economic property relations (cf. Tittenbrun 2011a, 2011b).

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-3- Families: having a stable home life is also associated with the ability to climb the economic ladder, said Corak. The United States tends to have higher rates of divorce, single- parent homes, and teenage pregnancy than many other industrialized countries. While single-parent families are less likely to ascend the social ladder, thereby worsening socio-economic inequality, another factor having such effects is sort of (class- estate)endogamy: "men and women with college degrees and high pay are more likely to marry each other" and thereby amplify income gaps (RUGABER, Boak 2014). Social policies: Countries that redistribute wealth - through, say, higher taxes on the rich and more spending on the poor - tend to have greater social mobility, said Francisco Ferreira, an economist at the World Bank. This is especially true when it comes to education spending. Critics have long contended that the U.S. system for funding education - where school funding is largely based on property taxes - perpetuates inequality far more so than a system that taxes the whole country for schools, then redistributes that money to the districts that are most needy" (Gilbert

2011). From an ownership point of view, this curtails the role of all-national income and

wealth redistribution, and thus this level of social ownership. The factor of education has been also singled out for particular attention in a historical explanation offered by another commentator, who however, in failing to name the type of politics at work is bound to end up in usual commonplace generalities condemning "politics and politicians in general": "In the middle of the 20th century, it seemed like we had figured it out. The post World War II GI Bill of Rights provided veterans the opportunity for a college education, for home ownership and for what came to be defined as the middle-class life. Social Security, a benefit that began in the 1930s, helped lift the elderly out of the poverty that was a near certainty for prior generations. Americans dreamed of far more than a chicken in every pot. They envisioned two cars in every garage. A bright future seemed inevitable for the middle Class - until it wasn" (Haupt 2014). Then a fairly usual set of lamentations follows, rather well exemplifying a rather desperate state of mind of the advocates of what in our terms is a myth rather than a reflection of reality: " education debt and constant partisan bickering speak of the collapse of the middle class and the end of the dream. There is the sense that Americans are powerless against forces beyond any individual effort, and that there is no need for citizens to work together through our civil government to patch up the dream. The American Dream has not been battered solely by economic forces or cultural changes. What happened is that we bought into nonsense. The Economist magazine summed isaster were sown in the 1980s. College graduation rates kept soaring for the affluent, but for those in the bottom half, a four-year degree is scarcely more attainable today than it was in the 1970s. And because some colleges actually hinder social mobility, the taxes that paid for it. Some voices, however, began to point to the higher wages earned by the college educated and declared that education is a private good. They argued that the public because students could shoulder loans and pay them back later. The same voices trumpeted lower public budgets, opposed the minimum wage and cut public pension benefits. In campaigning for the presidency in 1980, Ronald Reagan often proclaimed that government was not the solution to our problems but was itself the problem.

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-4- His attitude has been perpetuated and continues to be a tenet of faith of government leaders at every level. That unquestioning faith, along with a divided Congress that pays more attention to the needs of the wealthy than the middle class, is hamstringing the nation by making political faith more important than the facts of middle-class decline". (Haupt 2014) Along similar lines, economist Steven Fazzari of Washington University in St. Louis contended that with the existing socio-economic disparities, achieving the American Dream t if you work hard and play by the rules, you should have a decent, normal a larger share of Americans are Statistically, the middle includes households that make between $35,000 and $70,000, life. said. gateways, education, difficult to access when wages are low. wages are low, family wages are low, then where does that mobility asked (Jacoby 2014). A new report out by the Center for American Progress (CAP) highlights the divergence between the ideal and the present-day reality. According to the aformentioned report, for a typical middle class married couple with two children, the combined costs of health care, day care, housing and savings for college and retirement increased a staggering 32 percent between 2000 and 2012. As a consequence, it has become extremely difficult, if not impossible, for middle class families to satisfy some of the most basic needs, including having a place to call home. The fact of the matter is that housing costs have increased 28 percent over the past 12 years, meaning that fewer and fewer families can afford to purchase a home, used previously as kind of insurance policy against retirement. Another reason for substantial difficulties in financing housing is the Americans' debt trap: it takes them 20 years to pay off the mountains of student loan debt. The Cap points out that while owning a house has become next to impossible for the American middle class, renting one constitutes a substantial financial burden as well. Over half of renters in American spend 30 percent or more of their total income on housing, meaning that less and less money remains for other essentials. This is far from being the end of the story, as Americans are also struggling to save up for their children's college education. According to the CAP report, between 2000 and 2012 the average amount of money that a middle class family with two kids has to save for college education skyrocketed by 39 percent. Moreover, the cost of an education from a four-year public college or university increased by a staggering 86 percent during that same time period. According to the report, however, the high costs of housing and higher education for middle class families pale in comparison to the outrageously high costs of health care in Amerrica. (Hartmann 2014). And there are many other factors that bear on the credibility of that specifically American value system, which-as many claim-has however its counterparts in other countries: from China to the U.K.

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5. SOCIO-ECONOMIC DIVIDE

Compared with European social-market economies, the U.S. tax system is highly skewed in class terms, by at large epitomising the so-called Matthew effect: the name comes To make the matter worse, in 2013 in the deal he cut with congressional Republicans, "the president not only agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts for the highest earners but also to eliminate the estate tax for all but the microscopic percentage of people passing down more than $5 million - causing inheritance tax proponent Ray Madoff to declare the battle lost for good. And despite the role skewed financial rewards played in cratering the global economy, the Obama administration's policy response has failed to address outsized Wall Street and CEO compensation in any meaningful way. Bonus season is upon us, and with the big banks now liberated from their TARP obligations, the general attitude seems to be, 'What financial crisis?' Class war, prosecuted from above, is depicted as a threat from below. A Billionaire private equity manager Steve Schwarzman had the gall to compare the Obama administration's attempt to tax 'carried interest' at the same rate as other forms of income to when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939'. When it comes to raising working-class incomes, Obama has been similarly ineffective. As it is implemented over time, [...] Obama's health care reform may become a significant factor both in reducing the burden of medical costs on middle-income families and in promoting social equality. From 2008 to 2009, however, the number of people without health insurance rose from 46.3 million to 50.7 million. In the longer term, the key to combating inequality is upgrading the education and skills of American workers. But with the Republicans [...] in charge of the House, Obama's hopes for major new investments in worker skills seem more elusive than ever. In particular, his goal of every American receiving some higher education is going nowhere. [...] Statistics show the problem is getting worse. According to a study by Emmanuel Saez of Berkeley, the top 1 percent of earners captured two-thirds of all income growth between 2002 and 2007. [...] The bottom 20 percent of the population - which earned 5.4 percent of national income in 1967 - earned just 3.4 percent of it in 2009. The highest 20 percent went from 41.5 to 49.4 over the same period. The Gini Index - the standard measure of income inequality - ticked up again between 2008 and 2009, from .451 to .458. According to the CIA World Factbook, this figure puts the United States ahead of Russia and Turkey in inequality, and on par with Mexico and the Philippines. Why is income inequality proving so intractable a problem? [...] On the one hand, Obama is up against macro forces like globalization and a system that has grown highly effective at transmuting economic privilege into political power. Somehow, wide majorities have come to support tax law changes that benefit only tiny minorities" (Banu 2010). For example, according to the new bill mentioned above, "for the first time, wealthy individuals can make gifts of up to $5 million during their lifetime to anyone, including grandchildren, and pay no tax." It's like the old Steve Martin routine about how to be a millionaire and never pay taxesexcept that instead of "I forgot!" you now say, 'I'm allowed!' It is an American peculiarity that rich people want to be thought of as middle class, while those in the middle class identify with the economic interests of an upper class they have only a remote chance of joining. The United States, the land of opportunity, now boasts the world's second-lowest level of intergenerational income mobility.

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-6- Meanwhile, the people most alarmed about the rise of new economic dynasties seem to be the enlightened superrich themselves, people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Obama deserves fault for failing to articulate this abstract threat in a way ordinary people can appreciate. Like the deficit, income inequality never killed anybodyit merely

has the potential to sap the entire country's health and spirit. Moving toward an income

distribution like Brazil's threatens individual happiness, social peace, and American values. But so far, the president hasn't figured out how to get the public to relate to the issue. Obama told a group of frowning bankers at Cooper Union, 'There is no dividing line between Main Street and Wall Street." But there is, and it is growing deeper every year" (Banu 2010). Given the foregoing, it is not surprising that many social thinkers come to the conclusion that it is certainly far more easy to explain why Americans have a harder time making it into the middle class than why Americans cling to the belief that it's still easy to do, which is really baffling.3 "Even though there is no clear consensus among economists, sociologists, or Americans themselves for a single definition of the term, most Americans [...] identify themselves as middle class and consider membership in the middle class synonymous with achieving the American dream" (McMahon 1998). To put it another way, "public opinion data suggests that a strikingly large proportion of Americans, and particularly young Americans, believe they have a reasonably good chance of becoming rich in their lifetime. [...] Analysis of PSID data demonstrates the actual level of opportunity for upward income mobility over the life course and shows that Americans overestimate their chances of being rich. The overestimate is considerable even when subjective definitions are used, and is very large if conventional definitions such as top 3%, top 1%, or top 0.1% are used for the threshold" (DiPrete 2007). To return, then, to the aforementioned question, "it could be because, during the late

1800s and early 1900-suggested Jason Long, an economist at Wheaton College in Illinois-the

United States was a much more mobile country than Britain. While not denying the role of such historical experiences, it appears that one should not the American middle classes have been fed a very different line of propaganda, emphasizing individualism and the American dream of social mobility. Consequently, they tend to view in individual terms experiences that a European might interpret from a class it seems that everyone wants to think of themselves as middle class, even if that's not the case. 'The reality created by the commercial mass media is one in which everyone is middle class', Kate Ratcliff, professor of American studies at Marlboro College, told U.S. News. 'Advertising, television and movies all convey a world in which middle-class affluence is an

American birthright'.

As for developing countries, they like to claim middle class status for their own reasons, Birdsall told Slate. 'Developing countries that are growing

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3 All the more so that there is a cognitive dissonance here at work--partisan polling by

CNN found 63 percent of voters expressing the belief that our nation is in decline. Only 18 percent view the

country as on the right track. Most Americans reportedly see both their government and their economy as a

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6. DECLINE OF THE MYTH

It should be pointed out, however, that this traditional American mindset has been not immune to the processes in the real world. Michael Snyder reckons that the current median income of "$27,520 a year will not allow you to live 'the American Dream' in this day and age. After taxes, that breaks down to a good bit less than $2,000 a month. realistically pay a mortgage, make a car payment, afford health insurance and provide food, clothing and everything else your family needs for that much money. That is one of the reasons why both parents are working in most families today. In fact, sometimes both parents are working multiple jobs in a desperate attempt to make ends meet. Over the years, the cost of living has risen steadily but our paychecks have not. This has resulted in a steady erosion of the middle class. Once upon a time, most American families could afford a nice home, a couple of cars and a nice vacation every year. When I was growing up, it seemed like almost everyone was middle class. 'UHDPquotesdbs_dbs48.pdfusesText_48

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