American Dream or American Delusion?

The idea of the American Dream is as ingrained in U.S culture as apple pie, baseball, and reality television. It means one thing: having enough financial security to achieve one’s goals and support oneself and one’s family even after retirement. However, it’s unattainable — and people are just beginning to see this. The American Dream is withering due to a plethora of reasons, the most prominent being the rise of automation technology pushing many working-class people into poverty, the growing gap between social classes leading to the death of social mobility, and the fact that people will always want what is just out of reach.

As America has stepped into the 21st century, technology has begun to revolutionize the modern world. Although technology has aided Americans by providing more efficient modes of long-distance communication and opening millions of new jobs in an industry now worth 1.6 trillion dollars, the rise of tech has done more harm than good. Technological advances have allowed machines to do work quicker, longer, and without pay; upon realizing this, businesses have started a wave of automation which has led to the loss of 35.1 million jobs since 2000. So many once employable skills have thus become obsolete due to mass mechanization, leaving many blue-collar workers jobless; since supporting yourself is so critical to American Dream, it’s obvious that this ideal has already begun its denaturation. Surely, losing one’s job and being unable to support one’s family isn’t part of any dream, let alone the American one.

Some Americans will claim that their nation is full of equal opportunity and devoid of any imbalance by citing the fact that the U.S unemployment rate is 3.7%, the lowest that it’s been since 1969. Unfortunately, below these dazzlingly low unemployment rates, a bleak economic picture awaits. A study by Harvard University shows that in 1940, 90% of children grew up to earn more than their parents, while today, only half of children earn more than what their parents did. On top of this, The Congressional Budget Office recently found that the average after-tax income of the top 1% of U.S earners has risen 139% since 1979, while the same income for the middle fifth of Americans only rose 17%, and the bottom fifth saw only an 8% increase. It’s apparent that America is not the meritocracy it claims to be — an impressive work ethic is not the key to American success, but rather luck and lineage. 

There’s no such thing as contentment. Many will rush to say that this is wildly inaccurate, but psychologist Evan Thompson of the University of British Columbia and neuroscientist Jaak Panskepp have proven through years of research with multiple lottery winners that being able to finally achieve one’s dream only brings a transient sense of happiness. Though the winners were able to do everything they’d ever dreamed of, they still ranked their level of happiness as a 3.3 out of 5, the same level it had been at before they’d accomplished all their dreams. People will always hunger for more money and status, no matter where they are in life. The American Dream tells people that when they achieve it, they’ll finally be content; but, if contentment is an illusion, so too is the American Dream.

The American Dream is a delusion sold to encourage a cycle of tireless working, wishing, and spending in hopes that next week, next month, next year, you’ll finally realize this elusive dream. In reality, the American Dream has never existed, even for the wealthy elite who are held up as an example of the dream gone right. It’s important to open the nation’s eyes to this truth because to solve the issues plaguing modern America, all distractions must be expelled, including the glittering yet hollow disco ball that is the American Dream.