The American Pipe Dream
The national ethos, that every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life, is becoming an outlook lost in time. Many believe that the American Dream is dead. That the old lore of a post war America is no longer applicable to every citizen. For many this philosophy is alive and well, as they have substantial financial security and perceived prosperity. The individuals on the other side of the white picket fence see this wealth as unobtainable. The country is plagued with nihilism and dread as the opportunities dwindle and the freedoms we were promised fall very short of expectations.
There is validity to this sentiment, economic mobility has become more difficult. The American Dream, however, is not something that can be killed. It’s an idea that cannot be made or destroyed but passed down from one generation and inherited by the next. It’s the farthest thing from free. It requires sacrifice from those who want it, and those who already have it. Without our combined efforts, it’s all just a pipe dream.
Where We Went Wrong
The United States was founded as a frontier nation. The near limitless expanse of land and economic opportunities could enrich any impoverished person with the right work ethic. The growth-minded spirit dominated the nation as we settled west and cultivated nonstop enterprise. Today, people feel like all the land has already been bought, the corporations control all the jobs, and entrepreneurship is undertaking of magnificent proportions. It is as if we are like every other country, content with our standing and accepting of our existence as a cog in the machine.
The institutions have failed us. The expanding bureaucracy branded borders of control and taxation that make new settlement and homesteading challenging. Government rules the west as 28% of country is federally owned lands. Infrastructure is severely outdated or never designed for longevity in the first place. Building roads and utilities for new development is no longer a priority of our leadership class. This stifles the expansionary mentality that built this country and made it unique.
The financialization and subsidization of everything has made this country unaffordable. College tuition, healthcare, and housing have all been nationalized with the intent of standardizing and promulgating to a wider range of people. In reality, all of these things became more expensive and requires decades of indebtedness. The free market has been subverted by the government to empower the largest institutions who raise prices indefensibly and are guaranteed timely payments by the taxpayer. Salesmen no longer sell goods or services; they sell payment plans for Wall Street lenders to secure endless compounding interest from the consumer.
Fiscal policy in this country for the past few decades has been designed to forcibly redistribute income from the middle-class and divert it to the rich and poor. Normalizing corporate embellishment and favorable tax codes for business owners while the working-class wage slave pays for the entitlements of the poor and unemployed. Government bailouts and fiscal stimulus are abused to encourage negligent business and lending practices. The asset holders are always protected at the expense of the workers and savers. The currency is systematically devalued to augment stock prices and home values. Trickledown economics only works in a deflationary environment. The Cantillon Effect theorizes that the closer one is to the source of money creation, the more benefit they receive. By the time that money trickles down, it has already lost its value relative to the goods and services created by it. Inflation is a tax on the poor.
It's Our Fault Too
The American Dream is no longer hereditary. The current financial system is advantageous to those who already have investments, a home, and a career/retirement. This is at the expense of the younger generations who have not and will not be able to achieve these essential aspects of prosperity. The older generations have abandoned their kin for comfortable retirements and inflated home values. The Baby Boomers who bought their single-family-homes new, refuse to sell those same dilapidated homes to Millennials who need them to build their family. The institutional real estate investors reign supreme in this housing market as they are happy to buy those homes with cash and rent them out for substantial profit. Home ownership is now a luxury.
The young professional is demoralized. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. Worked hard for a specialized degree; obtained a corporate job; made all the financial sacrifices and they still cannot afford to live in the same neighborhood they grew up in. The biggest tragedy is that most of them couldn’t even do the bare minimum. The adolescents were swindled into getting a worthless degree with no viable job prospects; they have no chance of employment in an automated corporate hiring scheme that will never get their resume to management; they weren’t even given basic financial literacy to defend against scams and predatory debt. This has all led to the new trend of “doom spending” where the young professionals blow all their money on immediate gratification instead of saving for a life they believe is completely out of reach. The American consumer economy loves this trend, but the inevitable population collapse will crater any chance of funding the entitlements of a growing demographic of retirees.
This is all completely unsustainable. Crushing the workforce with taxes while simultaneously excluding those people from the benefits paid for by those taxes is unjust. Pulling up the corporate ladder on the generation who provides value-added labor will destroy any incentive to work hard. The motivation to have children is suppressed by a society that punishes families with the exponential cost of living and childcare. This country has shifted from building family values to building shareholder values. It will not last, because it cannot last.
A Hope and A Prayer
The prosperity of Americans is not dead and buried just yet. There are plenty of positive trends and a significant return to traditional principles. The internet has opened the rails of communication and inspired the next generation to right the wrongs of their predecessors. Individualism and the prominence of smaller communities is returning to American culture. Local markets are abundant and the preference for commerce with small businesses is a step in the right direction.
The acknowledgement of existing problems and the education of how to succeed in the modern economy is crucial. The old tricks are no longer applicable. Trades and value-added businesses will take precedence over degrees and corporate employment. Investing and producing will supplant saving and consuming. The frontier mindset will return as communities of like-minded people build and thrive together. This is the true American Dream. The rest will be left behind as they failed to understand the true ethos of this country, build not just for yourself but for others as well.