J. Stiglitz: The American Dream has become a myth

[the_tyrant]

I would say that the big rags to riches situation is not the norm.

Every day, there are people succeeding in a rags to riches story, in every field and industry. However, the "American Dream" is simply because at the time, there is a better chance of a rags to riches transformation in the United States.

However, I personally do not associate rags to riches with the US specifically, I associate it with the discovery of a "new frontier"

The new world offers more opportunities, simply because it is new. I would say that the "American dream" started off with Cortez and Columbus, they started the "rags to riches" trend in the new world.

it started with the Conquerors and explorers, than it went to the pioneers and settlers, than it became the industrialists, and now, the rags to riches stories occur in the IT industry.

The rags to riches stories are more likely to happen in a breakthrough, a new frontier. America was once the new frontier, than many subsequent breakthroughs happened in the US.

The "rags to riches" stories mostly happened in the US, because it was the "new frontier" in most of its history. Than, many subsequent breakthroughs occured in the united states.


this is the classic mis-interpretation of a relationsip. The breakthroughs happened in the US, thus you were more likely to "strike it rich". But you were likely to strike it rich because of the breakthrough developments, not because there is something interent about the United States that makes it more like for a poor man to suddenly strike it rich.

Rags to riches stories are most likely to happen when new trends and breakthroughs appear, there is no geographical relationship. In fact, there has been many success stories within the last few years in Somalia of all places. Pennyless fishermen who took up piracy ended up as millionares. That is the classical "american success story", they took a new emerging trend, ran with it, and got rich. Geography had nothing to do with it.

[soopaman2]

I am a rags to riches story.

I am not a millionare, but I own my house,2 cars, 2 cats, a dog, and a woman who tolerates me. My pets and my wife is all the wealth I need, the rest is all just nice to have.

The dream is there, but it is fleeting, becoming harder to hold onto that dream, and harder for future paupers to do the same.

[Oberon]

I think one of the hardest things to do as a human being is to be satisfied with what you have...it's something that as a race we have refused to do over thousands of years...and thankfully so otherwise we'd still be huddled in caves...but it's a double-edged sword, the drive to have a better life because what a better life is, is different to every single person. To someone in California it might be buying a new car, to someone in Addis Ababa it might be clean water, both mean the same thing to that person and yet in a rational mindset, one is quite clearly a much greater need for survival than the other.
When you throw society into the mix, then it gets even worse, the same media that is used to bring us pictures of those worse off than us, also brings us things like 'Celebrity cribs' or even just pictures of someones new computer setup. We look at screenshots of people running a graphics intensive game on full graphics settings and think "Man, I wish I had a rig that could do that", unlike that person in Addis Ababa, we are much more aware of what we don't have, than we are of what we do. Of course, there are exceptions, and they are mostly those who have built what they have from scratch, working up that ladder, like Soopaman, however if the opportunity came for advancement, they would not pass it by...and I don't blame them.
The problem comes when peoples drive leaves them up the ladder further than they can cope with being, and then they find themselves run ragged trying to cope, and stress pulls in, family life suffers and they die of a heart attack before they are fifty.
Finding that balance between personal happiness and personal advancement is, I think, one of the keys to a happy life.

Winning the lottery helps too....

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by soopaman2

[...] I am not a millionare, but I own my house,2 cars, 2 cats, a dog, and a woman who tolerates me. [...]

Hahaa that sound familiar minus one cat and one dog

Honestly i think this all one needs, and good health -

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Honestly I think this all one needs, and good health -

Give this man a cigar!

Last fall my wife was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Doctors told my daughter and I that she was in serious condition. Possible brain aneurysm. She was unresponsive and on life support. I called my son who was in Halifax and told him to come home immediately. Fortunately, it turned out to be an extremely severe migraine. But there was a moment there, a dark one when all else falls away. Glad to report that she is back to her very healthy self.

I believe that the American dream or in our case the Canadian one is falsely sold as being a material one. Money, cars, stuff. You can't put a value on health and a sense of security. I'm just a blue collar guy, wife's a receptionist. We're not wealthy but we have no complaints. Can you put a value on that? Happiness trumps all else.

[August]

I think you people are confusing an opportunity with a guarantee. The American dream has always been about having a chance for success, something not found in the countries our citizens left to come here but it is certainly no promise of success.

People love to bitch about their position in life but rarely do I see the effort put in to improving it than I see in our local immigrant entrepreneurs. Those people know how to work, and they also understand the power of family. Mom, dad, sons, daughters, grandma, uncles and aunts all working together to build a business that supports them all. When I see these folks I think to myself that this is really what the American dream is all about.

[soopaman2]

Exactly August, I am not advocating a free ride, but advoacating that the poor, and less wealthy have a chance.

Like if you want welfare, you have to work community service, and pee in a cup. (I can tell you stories, most already read them from me)

I can ask my rich daddy for trade school or college money. (not me, but alot, the born rich are typically lazier anyways)

But what chance does Tyrone from some craphole project has? A loan he can never pay back (if he even gets it), just feeding the banking beast.

He may want to change, but his lot in life is based on how he was born.

Kinda like what we fought against when we kicked britain out of here. (the new monarch is now the dollar, and it is infallible over all human life )

We may as well be India, with the Caste system, modern paupers have zero shot... This is not the 50s, and American exceptionalism is long long dead.

[August]

Originally Posted by soopaman2

But what chance does Tyrone from some craphole project has? A loan he can never pay back (if he even gets it), just feeding the banking beast.

He has the same chance for advancement that Americans have always had. The problem nowadays is that we set unrealistic expectations for ourselves. If we can't go from a craphole to a mansion by the time we turn 30 then many of us don't even try.

The folks who manage it, via sports or acting or just plain good luck, they are the ones we see on TV that everyone looks to and says "that's what i'm gonna do", well you can't. The truth is that very few people can go from the bottom of the barrel to the top in one lifetime. Maybe one in a million.

Instead of taking loans to get some useless degree that he can't capitalize upon, Tyrone would be better off getting training in something he can, like a trade. If, in the course of his life he can get his family out of the craphole and into a modest home then he has realized the American dream. His kids will be able to take it to the next level and their kids yet another.

You build upon what you start with and your sons and daughters build upon that and so on and so on. That's why a functioning and cohesive family environment is so important and it's something I see immigrant families do well and many of us natives do not.

[Betonov]

Let's say I move to the US of A:

5 years ago I was 21. No work experiance and a high school education that no-one wants to employ in this country. The American dream would be a myth for me. At best I'd work as a field hand or taxi driver. I'm too ugly for a waiter.

Today I am 21. Same education but 5 years experience in boat construction and plastic working. I'd get a job in plastic or boat industry and slowly work my way up. The American dream would be a reality, but I'd have to swim in sweat to get there.

If I had gone into study of public relations, management or some other over saturated profession I'd have to rely on my experience in plastic and still had to work my ass off. I'd be an educated manual worker (obicni fizicki radnik as we say here)

When I graduate in nautical engineering I'd find a decent payed job at sipping companies and work my way up. The American dream would be a reality and wouldn't need that much sweat since I have an education that job markets are looking for.


The American dream is not dead. You just have to work hard and work SMART on it.

[AVGWarhawk]

The American dream is not dead. You just have to work hard and work SMART on it.

The same formula that has worked for decades.

[Sailor Steve]

I think Mr. Stiglitz misunderstands what the 'American Dream' is. It was never about making it from the bottom to the top, as he puts it. What it has always been is the ideal of being the best you can be, and the freedom to do so. Two hundred years ago every European was born into a class, as they had been for the thousand years before that, and they were a part of that class and could never be otherwise. A nobleman couldn't become a peasant any more than a peasant could become a nobleman. In America if you didn't like the job you had you could learn to be something else. It may not have raised your social position or made your life better, but if there was something else you wanted to do you were guaranteed the freedom to do it.

Most of Europe learned from that example, and when Mr. Stiglitz points out that many Europeans have it better today it is because they were intrigued by what had happened in one country and strove to emulate it. It has always been rare for someone born poor to become rich, but it did happen, and still does. It's true that most of us will never be a famous actor, rock star or software developer, but people do still achieve those. On the other hand it's not uncommon for people to rise to the top of the jobs they do have. The dream exists because in the 'Old Country' there was a time when you couldn't do that. There are still places in the world where you can't, and for the people there the American Dream still lives, though these days it has become a dream that can be fulfilled in much of the Western World, which makes America not stand out as it once did.

I say that's a good thing.

[Kptlt. Neuerburg]

A decent example of what some would consider the "American Dream" is the story of one of the greatest comedians who ever lived and that is Groucho Marx. He was the son of German-French parents, was born and raised in New York, eventually he and his brothers hit it big in Vaudeville and finally got into early film. The thing I have to admire the most about Groucho and his brothers is the fact they where not only the sons of immigrant parents, not only did they survive the hard and hectic world of Vaudeville, but the fact that he was able to find the one thing he was really, really good at and that was entertainment. There are a lot of people who dream, few will ever realize that dream.

Also even though he's passed away, Happy 122nd Birthday Groucho!

[joea]

Nout sure the dream ever existed but it sure is not the case now. I would add for many places not just the USA.

[Penguin]

An empirical study, which started as far back as 1968, confirms Stiglitz' line of thought: Exceptional upward mobility in the U.S. is a myth, international studies show

As much as the American Dream turns out to be a myth, it has one positive side-effect: Imo, the respect for people who come from the "lower castes" and work their way up and also the acceptance for folks who switch their career paths even at higher ages, is much greater than in Germany.
A German friend of mine, who currently works in GB, thinks the perpetuation of the class system is even worse over there.