Leaving the US was a dream I had as a child. Considering how my life is going and an increased competition for the privilege of emigrating to the EU, it seems pretty unlikely.
Yeah, that’s always the issue. You can’t just legally go anywhere you want to go unless you have many of the skills that would potentially also make you able to succeed in the US as long as you can avoid illness or injury.
i know a few people who have moved abroad. The folks that went to Thailand seem super happy, enough so that my partner and I are considering it. We just did a scoping trip for a couple months and the city of Chiang Mai is super nice. As someone who lives in a bigger US city I found things in general were more relaxed and peaceful in Chiang Mai. Convenience stores look well taken care of, people don't seem angry everywhere you go, the food was amazing... honestly it seemed like a better life in general. Though admittedly i was only there for a short time.
I think living abroad would be great for people since it would give them a more well rounded world view, which American’s desperately need.
However, be aware that urban life is not the same as suburban or rural life, even in the US. There are plenty of places in the US you can move to and slow down. I moved from the East Coast to Colorado years back for this reason. Quality of life went way up and since I moved to a state with half a brain, I feel my votes count more too.
People often equate America as a singular country, when it’s really 50 different states (plus territories) that are all governed differently. Living in Virginia is foreign to living in Colorado is foreign to living in California.
Right, I don’t have a degree or specialized experience that any country would give me a visa for. Except maybe Canada last I checked but things aren’t different enough up there to make that worth it.
The problem is that the American dream as defined in the article, “if you work hard you’ll get ahead,” is so nebulous as to have no meaning. Work hard at what? Get ahead how? Some people interpret that as ‘hard work makes you rich’ and other people interpret that as ‘hard works makes you able to live comfortably within your means.’ Certainly the former has taken over from the latter in great amount in the last couple of decades, but when I was a kid in the 80s, having a house and a car was a sign that you worked hard and got ahead.
But it’s also false that working hard got most people born in poverty ahead. It was never true for the lower classes and now the middle classes are finding out why.
As far as I can see it, the issue isn’t that the American Dream is dead, it’s that the American Dream never applied universally and never had much meaning to begin with and now it’s been perverted into the capitalistic idea that anyone could be rich if they just pulled themselves up by their bootstraps hard enough.
There are many developed countries that have actually made it much easier for regular people to get ahead. But it requires more wealth redistribution and regulation than what many Americans, especially conservatives, are willing to accept.
One example is Denmark with their “flexicurity” labor market where it’s easy and uncomplicated for employers to hire and fire based on changing needs. On the other hand, the government provides a comprehensive security net that catches when employees get laid off, which means they never fall into poverty until they get their next job. They don’t have to start over and burn through everything they already built.
They also provide universal healthcare and many other universal benefits that do not depend on employment, so you never have those worries hanging over you in case you get laid off.
In the US, lots of people and families fall in and out of poverty and slide continuesly up and down the economic ladder based on whatever their employer decides.
Edit: Added link to more information on Flexicurity.
In the US, lots of people and families fall in and out of poverty and slide continuesly up and down the economic ladder based on whatever their employer decides.
Or based on diseases and injuries. It’s terrifying how apathetic US citizens have gotten about the fact that your ability to survive in this economy depends overwhelmingly on you never getting a chronic illness or suffering in an accident, through no fault of your own.
It’s like that scene in Finding Nemo, where the fish are caught in the net. None of the fish want to die, but the net is going to keep pulling them to their death regardless of their collective desires. Subverting that fate requires that every single fish pull together, at the same time, and in the same direction, which, outside of an animated movie, isn’t going to happen.
Changing the system requires us to vote together, at the same time, and in the same direction, which, outside of an animated movie, isn’t going to happen.
Apathy is just the state of those that have tired themselves out trying to make up for the fact that not everyone is going to be pulling at the same time, and in the same direction. If no matter how hard you pull, the net is going to keep pulling you in whichever direction its operators desire, pulling is a futile endeavor, and apathy will eventually be all you have left.
“Subverting that fate requires that every single fish pull together, at the same time, and in the same direction, which, outside of an animated movie, isn’t going to happen.”
Fortunately there are these things called unions which are specifically designed to coordinate huge groups of fish into swimming all in the same direction when the fish really need to. Not perfect, but they can work outside of an animated movie :)
Yeah, I agree - unions and representative collective bargaining is the best shot that most of us have to effect any meaningful, positive change, and I hope that our willingness and ability to unionize only increases. Unions seem to be trending upward these days, at least relative to the past couple of decades, but they also seem to largely operate in an employment-centric capacity.
When it comes to environmental concerns, though, it really does feel fruitless. I’m not saying that giving up is the answer - just that it’s important to acknowledge and accept when the situation feels futile, and continue to try regardless, especially in light of our collective fates at the end of the road. In the US, at least, corporate influencers have had so much time to set things up in their favor - through the courts, legislature, and minds of the people - that it feels like we’re fish caught in their net.
Representative democracy is our best bet for effecting positive change on that front too, but our current conundrum is that many of our representatives have stopped representing us in meaningful ways, often paying lip service while they get paid through Super PACs and amenities. The best way to change that, short of violence (in which the outcome is, at best, mutually assured destruction of both government and populace) is, again, voting together, at the same time, and in the same direction.
I still hope for a better future, and I will do what is in my power to try and realize that future. I just hope that there are enough of us trying, at the same time, and in the same direction.
Yes, Denmark has nice health coverage and social security, but its not at all “The American Dream”.
It’s more like a safety net from the American Nightmare, but just like everywhere else, you need to be born with capital to be successful in a capitalist society.
The free education does give people a better chance to make it from rags to riches through studying and working, but it’ll still take about one generation to make it further than top middle-class. To really really make it, you’ll need money to invest in your own business. That part might be harder, because it’s a really dense market, not just for selling but also for employing other people etc.
Part of the American Dream actually requires other people to be worse off. Everyone can “work hard” if given the option. The difficulty in USA is that not everyone has the option. The difficulty in Denmark is that everyone has the option, so the competition is harder, so it requires even harder work luck.
The difficulty in Denmark is that everyone has the option, so the competition is harder, so it requires even harder work luck.
I don’t know. Denmark, and many other European countries, is basically one big middle class society with few very rich and few very poor people. That’s by design. Extreme wealth and extreme poverty are not socially and politically acceptable. Sure, you still need to work hard, but the safety net and availability of higher education throughout your career make that way easier than in other most places, and probably much easier than in the US.
In the US, you see extremely rich people in one neighborhood and a trailer park a few hundred yards down the road. You sacrifice the good of the many for the great of the few. That would not be an acceptable outcome in much of Europe without any action taken to alleviate it.
Yes exactly. Mediocrity is the goal - for the better of many and worse for the few. My point is that the American Dream doesn’t really work here either. I suppose there are places in the world where one can just show up and be successful by working hard, but I’m not sure where.
The traditional Simpsons family life in a 2 story house with a lawn, 2 cars, 2 children, a dog and a cat is probably easier to achieve in Europe than in USA currently. If that’s the American Dream then I have already achieved it, but I still feel like I’m artificially limited from ever getting free of debt or being able to retire early or anything else that comes with the dream of being wealthy.
Anyway I’m not complaining. It’s just never easy. I still have to work for it and I still have to fight for my rights and politics get worse every year and so on
Sometimes I wonder if I could have done differently and been more successful elsewhere, but I don’t really think the external factors would have made much of a difference.
The american dream is to live better off than your parents. Generally through getting more education.
… Lol.
The other term that comes to mind is Social Mobility. I remember learning in history class how America had an obscenely high social mobility àt many times throughout our history. And that has vanished. Like, completely.
What’s hard to decode about these aphorisms is that, as you suggest, they mean many things to many people.
I’ve always taken “work hard and get ahead” to mean little more than “work more than the next guy and you’ll have a little more than him,” but that also is not guaranteed. Different jobs pay differently, and it’s not hard to find wild disparities because of it.
There’s also the “Just Universe Fallacy” which seems to thread through this narrative a lot. Take the premise that, if there are clear winners and losers and your starting position gives you an outsized advantage, then the notion of “labor equals wealth” is false. It’s tempting to disregard the former and instead cling to the fallacy of the latter, as merely existing in an unfair world is unthinkable.