J. Stiglitz: The American Dream has become a myth

[Armistead]

We fools ourselves today that we have a middle class, most have a few things but are in debt to their necks and really have no wealth.

We fools ourselves today that we have a middle class, most have a few things but are in debt to their necks and really have no wealth.

You have a middle class, the issue with the "disappearing" middle class is that lots of working class people got convinced that they were somehow middle class.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Not every American share the same dream.

Before we can discuss whether the American Dream is or ain't a myth, we need to understand what that term really means.

I always liked this quote as it, to me, represents the American Dream

The right to regulate the use of wealth in the public interest is universally admitted. Let us admit also the right to regulate the terms and conditions of labor, which is the chief element of wealth, directly in the interest of the common good.

The fundamental thing to do for every man is to give him a chance to reach a place in which he will make the greatest possible contribution to the public welfare. Understand what I say there. Give him a chance, not push him up if he will not be pushed. Help any man who stumbles; if he lies down, it is a poor job to try to carry him; but if he is a worthy man, try your best to see that he gets a chance to show the worth that is in him.

-- some old dead guy

[Skybird]

"The right to regulate the use of wealth in the public interest is universally admitted."

That is not the American Dream. That is communism. And it leads to social degeneration and cultural collapse, for it discourages everything that is of value and is noble and creative and proud and strong in man, and it motivates what is of laziness, apathy, parasitic greed and envy, anti-social nature, and denial of responsibility.

The American Dream is more about to grant protection of private property without allowing the majority vote to regulate how the private owner may or may not use that wealth of his, by that he is owner and master of what is his and he can use it the way he wants, voluntarily, as long as he does not use it in any way that limits the right of somebody else to own and use his property.

What that is all about? It is about freedom. The freedom to own what nobody else has claimed and thus is claimed first by yourself. The freedom to produce on the basis of this originally owned property. The freedom to trade either the original property or the newly produced goods by conditions bilaterally negotiated and agreed upon by the two partners, without any state interfering, and without any anonymous majority demanding to have a word in that. The freedom to be your own fate's creator.

That is the American dream. Public regulations of an ever growing bureaucracy, socialist redistribution in the name of the canaille and political opportunists, taking more and more rights of owners of something of value away and giving the majority the right to claim it for itself instead - that is freedom NOT, that is the American Dream NOT.



There are excesses by the ultra-rich, no doubt, and they did and do a lot of damage, absolutely. But that they are given the chance to run these excesses and to abuse society and the institutions of the state has different and much much more profound and basic reasons than just lacking regulation of wealth - and that there is a strong central state and government is one of these very reasons. What they do, is an abuse of freedom. Destroying freedom even more in order to reduce the abuse of freedom is like killing the patient in order to cure his disease.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Oh you big wussy.

**Language Warning**

Now if I had posted that I'd have been infracted before you could say Aaron Sorkin. Who do you pay off?

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Skybird

"The right to regulate the use of wealth in the public interest is universally admitted."

That is not the American Dream. That is communism. And it leads to social degeneration and cultural collapse, for it discourages everything that is of value and is noble and creative and proud and strong in man, and it motivates what is of laziness, apathy, parasitic greed and envy, anti-social nature, and denial of responsibility.

The American Dream is more about to grant protection of private property without allowing the majority vote to regulate how the private owner may or may not use that wealth of his, by that he is owner and master of what is his and he can use it the way he wants, voluntarily, as long as he does not use it in any way that limits the right of somebody else to own and use his property.

With all due respect...what do you know about the American Dream? Have you lived here for any lengthy period of time?

Sorry if I come across as harsh, but when you dog Teddy Roosevelt, who is one of my historical heroes and someone that I feel really "gets it" in terms of what America is all about, you get my dander up.

Sorry to sound like August here, but I think you're out of your depth and you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

With all due respect...what do you know about the American Dream? Have you lived here for any lengthy period of time?

Sorry if I come across as harsh, but when you dog Teddy Roosevelt, who is one of my historical heroes and someone that I feel really "gets it" in terms of what America is all about, you get my dander up.

Sorry to sound like August here, but I think you're out of your depth and you have no idea what you're talking about.

Not to defend Skybird here, Mookie, but the American dream has been shared by many an immigrant well before they'd ever set foot on our shores. "Shining city on a hill" and all that jazz that I happen to whole-heartedly believe in. I guess I'm just asking you to rebuttal the argument and not the person, because I believe that who we are as a nation stands for far more people than those who merely reside within our borders.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Aramike

Not to defend Skybird here, Mookie, but the American dream has been shared by many an immigrant well before they'd ever set foot on our shores. "Shining city on a hill" and all that jazz that I happen to whole-heartedly believe in. I guess I'm just asking you to rebuttal the argument and not the person, because I believe that who we are as a nation stands for far more people than those who merely reside within our borders.

You are indeed correct and I humbly stand corrected. I blame the wine!

To rebut the argument - that is absolutely not communism. It's patriotism. It's a nation coming together and people pursuing their goals and the whole nation becoming ever stronger for it - becoming more than a sum of the parts. It's about everyone getting a fair shake. It's about the rising tide lifting all boats. It's about recognizing the need for both capital AND labor and recognizing the symbiotic relationship between them, and realizing one would not exist without the other and to that end ensuring that the system doesn't unjustly favor one at the expense of the other. Wealth comes with privilege, and that privilege can be used to exploit those without wealth. Necessary structure is required to ensure that the system continues to benefit everyone equally.

I suppose someone that came from a part of the world where communism was a very real fact of everyday life not so long ago might be inclined to see it as communism, but there's a distinct difference in TR's words that may be too subtle to grasp for someone looking from the outside in.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

With all due respect...what do you know about the American Dream? Have you lived here for any lengthy period of time?

Sorry if I come across as harsh, but when you dog Teddy Roosevelt, who is one of my historical heroes and someone that I feel really "gets it" in terms of what America is all about, you get my dander up.

Sorry to sound like August here, but I think you're out of your depth and you have no idea what you're talking about.

The American Dream is a term common in literature that can objectively discussed on the grounds of history, politics, economics and more - without needing to live in America or holding American citizenship. You could as well question the wisdom in discussing for example Keynesian economics as long as you have not lived in Britain or Roman law without having lived in the Roman empire or the idea behind the the era of German romanticism without being German. Same is true for the pursuit of happiness - you can discuss its content and meaning and vision like you can discuss the premise of the German Basic Law that the dignity of man is untouchable.

and I stick to it, the basic idea of changing society according to socialist and communist ideas is redistributing wealth from private owners to everybody. Any government claiming the right to regulate wealth, interferes with the basic freedom of citizens, and the more a state or government is being left with the power not only to financially live by the people, but to even regulate how much people have to give away, the more such a govenrmet will want in taxes, redistribution, and control of people'S freedom. In other words, after private property gets ordered to be turned into property owned by all (regulate wealth), democratic governments turn into tyrannies themselves. In principle, democratic governments are tyrannies from all beginning on - already for the only reason of that they do exist.

BTW, I knew by whom the quote was, I have read it before. Still, I call it the operation manual to run communism.

The US were founded as a lose union of sub-national entities with a very weak - intended - government, the foundign fathers explciitly tried to prevent that America would turn into a democracy. It was Andrew Jackson, the sixth or seventh president, who started to inject the idea of a stronger national centralism in government, and to demand that the basis of political power should become a justification founded in the idea of democracy. With it, there came the American so-called spoils system, the birth of massive economic lobbyism, and all the aberrations and distortions that democracy unavoidably comes along with and that the founding fathers wanted to prevent. And it took a civil war to enforce the strong central government against the bitter opposition of a significant part of the american people. The end of slavery was just only aspect of it all. The change from an aristocratic to a democratic republic was far more decisive a consequence of the civil war, like later in Europe the first World War marked the change from monarchic systems to democratic republican system.

One must not live in America or be American to talk about this, Mookie. Both conditions do not guarantee education on these things, btw. What really is far ire important is: to have access and to read some books, or use other sources of education on something.

I do not claim to be an expert for American history. But I constantly learn about it in context with the political themes I am interested in. I have great sympathy for the ideas and worries of the original founders of America, and their vision of what the country should be like, and led by what sort of ethical yearning. But I have not much sympathy for what the US today is, and how it has changed for the worse since then, and how it has deformed its original nature and spirit. America today and the America that once was meant to be - are lightyears apart. All my criticism of of America today must always be seen in the light of this basic opinion of mine: the difference between how it was meant to be, and how it really is today.