October 21, 2021

By Tanner Smith

Graphic by CJ Christy

Tanner Smith is a freshman communication and political science major at MU. He is an opinion columnist who writes about politics and other current events for The Maneater.

The sad truth: a person’s economic situation is not going to get better due to a lack of social mobility in America. The good news is that due to the way capitalism is set up, a person’s finances are not going to be that much worse either. In fact, 20 years from now, a person’s economic system will most likely look exactly the same. 

One can argue that with hard work they have the ability to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and succeed, thus feeding into the basic nature of the traditional American Dream. And for a small number of people they will be able to come from nothing and improve their lives in a meaningful way. That’s the allure of capitalism. That’s the idea that the American Dream propagates. The problem is, this is by no means the reality. It is past time we start acknowledging these false expectations and abandon the outdated idea of the American Dream.

The American mixed economy over recent decades has created an economy that has allowed for a rise in income and inequality, and allows those who aren’t rich to be routinely exploited as a way to extract as much profit as possible. This is something for the vast majority of my life I have not had to worry about, because I came from a middle-class family. Food was always on the table, there was always enough money for a vacation or two and there was never any trouble making ends meet. 

When I was a kid, it was easy enough to assume that everyone was doing ok and that the system gives everyone the opportunity to succeed. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen how blatant of a lie that really is. I’ve been told about the validity of the American Dream since birth, and that if I work hard enough, I can truly be anything that I want to be. While this may be true for me and other middle- and upper-class families, the people who live from paycheck to paycheck are systemically oppressed because of the constant need for cheap and exploitable labor. 

The American Dream, when it was popularized in 1931 by James Truslow Adams, refers to the materialistic idea of hard work allowing people to increase their social and economic status. Since then, this idea has become so ingrained in American society that it has become commonplace to hear that a person can be whatever they want if they just work hard enough, creating the modern-day idea of social mobility. 

So how accurate is the idea of the American Dream? For starters, the basic idea the American Dream presents is deeply flawed. According to a study from UCLA, Arizona State University and the London School of Economics and Political Science, while people want to believe that America is based around the idea that anyone climb through the social ladder, “​​race and place of birth” are huge factors that contribute to whether a person is able to climb through the social ladder. 

In fact it goes even deeper. The same article notes that “children in the US are less likely to earn more than their parents as adults if they are Black or grow up in Southern states,” casting doubt on the idea that anyone can increase their economic situation.

Another example is former president Donald Trump and his claim of being a self-made billionaire. Trump’s “small” million dollar loan and other advantages he was given because of his family’s large wealth help to better explain how he became wealthy rather than his hard work. 

But why is this the case? It’s all about opportunity. According to the World Economic Forum, “richer parents can afford to send their children to better schools” which in turn gives their children better education — and subsequently a higher level of educational prestige — which leads to “better opportunities and more wealth later in life.” This creates cycles of inequality that reward those at the top of the economic structure while making it nearly impossible to increase the social position of those less well-off. 

Coupled with “median wages [that] have stagnated” and the modern generation “expected to be poorer than their parents,” the socioeconomic status a person is born into “can account for up to two thirds of the wealth an individual generates.” That doesn’t sound like the American Dream to me. 

But the examples don’t stop here. The examples of the failure of the American Dream are numerous. The New York Times in “Obituaries for the American Dream” gives even more stories about the inequalities in society — whether those be social, economic or political — that keep people from achieving social mobility.

So if the American Dream is so broken, why is it still so prevalent? For the people to have large amounts of wealth, they need someone at the bottom to profit off of. Look at Amazon. The way they treat their employees in a way to maximize their profit, restricting things such as their bathroom use and break times — allowing for “18 minutes per shift” in a shift that “was 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m” — is sickening.

That’s why there is no real social mobility, there is no incentive for the system to change because it is working exactly how it is supposed to. The rich get richer and the poor stay poor.

This simply must change. Continuing to promote the idea of the American Dream allows systems of oppression to continue to feed off of the “hope” that life could improve, when for the vast majority of people it most likely won’t.

Although it won’t be easy, it is vital that we need to adopt a new mindset, one based around solving the problems of rampant exploitation and a lack of social media. Whether that is expanding social programs or working to create mechanisms to make the economic system more based around hard work instead of generational wealth, something needs to change. 

It’s time to abandon the American Dream.

The Maneater encourages all readers to commit to the fight for women’s rights and donate to Planned Parenthood. “At Planned Parenthood our mission is to ensure all people have access to the care and resources they need to make informed decisions about their bodies, their lives, and their futures.”

https://www.weareplannedparenthood.org/onlineactions/2U7UN1iNhESWUfDs4gDPNg2?_ga=2.140273075.1884288775.1630026403-78225127.1630026403

Edited by Sarah Rubinstein | srubinstein@themaneater.com