The American Dream
By Larry
Romanoff, July 26, 2022
The
US has one of the most deeply-ingrained nationalistic ideologies of any nation.
Accompanying the grand mass hysterias of patriotism and freedom, one of the
most pervasive links in the ideological chain that creates the American sense
of identity is a belief in "The American Dream", an imaginary ideal
that offers a rags-to-riches path to prosperity. In this mythical universe, all
opportunity is equally available to every citizen, in a land where even those
with no credentials, education or experience can accumulate untold riches and
even rise to become the president of the country. In this context, America is a
fantastic utopian myth promoted by the propaganda machine as an idealistic
Shangri-la concept of opportunity and hope, where even the most disadvantaged
have a fair chance at wealth and fame.
Americans
almost universally believe they are unique in this regard, the US virtually
defining itself as the land of opportunity, but this has always been a delusion.
While it may be true that the US has accumulated comparatively more wealthy
individuals than other nations, and which status has been broadcast to the
world as evidence of virtue, this is much more an indictment of the predatory
and anti-social nature of American-style capitalism than of equity and
opportunity. It is true that the uniquely predatory form of American capitalism
will create some kinds of opportunities that do not exist in other countries,
but we can develop a very strong argument that those kinds should not be
permitted to exist. Let's not erase 2008 from our memories too soon. Moreover,
there have been precious few large personal fortunes created in the US that
were not accompanied by the commitment of even greater crimes, and the executives
of a great many US multinationals from the Rockefeller's United Fruit Company
and Standard Oil to Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart should have faced trial and been
executed for crimes against humanity.
The
US does indeed have a large number of billionaires, but this is directly offset
by the vast decline of the middle class and the huge and increasing number of
impoverished. The elite 1%, the bankers and industrialists who control the
government, forced legislation that freed them from taxes and regulation to
permit that free accumulation of wealth. The fact that other Western nations
have fewer of the extreme rich is also directly offset by their corresponding
lack of poverty. One need only examine the data on income inequality to realise
that opportunity in America is increasingly reserved for the privileged
few and that the masses are not only excluded by design but are being
plundered by that same privileged few.
As
with almost every other American claim of supremacy, the few examples offered
of anything are virtually the only examples that exist. Americans will proudly
point to a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffett as evidence of the truth of their
conviction, but Gates (William H. Gates III) was
third-generation old money whose family was connected at the highest levels and
not, as the myth would have it, an unknown computer geek who dropped out of
Harvard and struck gold with a good idea. In any case, Gates and Buffett are
two individuals of 300 million, and the brutal truth that seems to escape the
consciousness of Americans is that these two accumulated their wealth while
tens of millions of others were losing their homes and jobs. Americans will
point proudly to Apple, with its accumulated offshore profits of $300 billion
as evidence of America's limitless possibilities, but are apparently unable to
see the millions living in tent cities and sleeping in the sewers of Las Vegas
as one inevitable result of the accumulation of that same $300 billion. And
they are also unable to see the criminality of firms like Foxconn in China who
produce those Apple products in what are essentially forced-labor concentration
camps. The rich in every nation do not become rich because they are
smarter, but by taking advantage and almost always by brutalising those less
fortunate.
We
can easily create an almost perfect analogy to the American dream: "All
Americans have the opportunity to learn to fly. Not in an airplane, but like
Superman, cruising through the air on mystical superpowers." Of course, if
we examine the landscape, we find precious few individuals who seem to have
taken advantage of this great opportunity, but this lack of evidence in no way
invalidates our premise. In precisely the same fashion we can claim that all
Americans have the opportunity to become rich and successful. Again, when we
examine the landscape, we find precious few individuals who have actually
managed this, but again the lack of evidence does not serve to invalidate our
premise. Of course, the entire argument is just nonsense. The success of Warren
Buffett is indicative of nothing but one fortunate and talented individual who
was in the right places at the right times and who is remarkable only for his
rarity. We have a few Elon Musks and others like him, but again this is
indicative of nothing. If the American dream as stated is real, we need at
least many tens of millions of individuals who have achieved some reasonable
measure of this dream. But they don't exist, and the reason they don't
exist is that the entire narrative of the American dream is a fraud.
While
the US government, controlled by its bankers and financiers, its multinational
corporate elite and the FED, has been working for decades to eviscerate the
middle and lower classes and to effect a continuous and massive transfer of
wealth to the top 1%, the bottom 99% have been singing the praises of the
'democratic' capitalist system that has been progressively abused to facilitate
this transfer. In truth and reality, they are praising the very components of
their system that are dragging them further into poverty with each passing
year. I can think of no greater tribute to the power of propaganda than for a
nation of increasingly impoverished, uneducated and unemployed to not only be
blinded to the deliberate manufacture of their own misfortune, but to worship
the system that permitted it and venerate the individuals who caused it.
It
is noteworthy that religion plays a significant supporting role in the
propagation of this fraud. The simplistic and
simple-minded American versions of Christianity, with their two-dimensional and
heavily moralistic view of the world, encourage a belief in the eventual
triumph of virtue, hard work of course being characteristic of virtue and
success being one measure of its practice. In this context and under this
indoctrination it is perfectly plausible that the blame for one's failure to
'succeed' should be attributed to one's own shortcomings, and indeed it is seen
as whining to blame the system rather than ourselves for our lack of progress.
The entire myth, the foundation of the American Dream, is that US-style
capitalism will automatically enrich anyone who works hard, filling individuals
with an illusory hope that seldom comes to fruition while encouraging them to
blame themselves when they fail.
One
author wrote that, like most everything else in the US, the American
Dream is a lie, but this myth is "so psychologically seductive to
those who are ambitious and harbor hopes for a better future that the
propaganda itself creates devoted followers even in the absence of all
evidence". This is truly one of the great tragedies of human life in
America, that so many millions of people believe fervently in what is simply a
fairy-tale, telling themselves that "there are always possibilities"
when a clear-headed look around them should send most of them scurrying for the
door. And it is always the most innocent and gullible, the ignorant and
uninformed, the most vulnerable, who are the most susceptible to this vicious
propaganda, as evidenced by companies like Amway.
It
sometimes seems that half the content of US bookstores consists of what we call
'self-help' books, meant to give us 'the real secret' to success and riches. Of
course, if one book ever did do that, there would be no need for a second. The
secret contained in these books is mostly limited to some variation of
"You have to believe". And when you fail to strike gold, as you
inevitably will, then your belief just wasn't strong enough.
The
reality is that opportunity and the path to riches exist today only for the
well-connected, with few of the brilliant, industrious, and well-educated ever
achieving either wealth or fame, yet most Americans are still deluded into
believing these goals are actually attainable. It was once an axiom that a
rising tide lifts all boats, but in the last 50 years only the luxury yachts
have risen, with the top 1% aggregating most of the income and assets to itself
while the middle class has consistently lost ground and been virtually gutted.
With the increased financialisation and de-industrialisation of the US
economy, with the FED repeatedly engineering booms and busts, each
with its corresponding massive wealth transfer, the mountain to riches has
become a very steep climb indeed for the average citizen. Many authors have noted
that a distinguishing feature of American society is the increasingly greater
social stratification, whereby those from the lower class have almost no chance
to rise even into the middle class, much less aspire to riches or high
society. Among all developed nations, the US has become the country in
which economic and societal status are most likely to be inherited and that
individual effort or even genius are unlikely to achieve anything remarkable.
It
must also be noted that peoples in all nations harbor hopes of progress, of
improvement in their lives, of increasing prosperity, of freedom from want and
need, Americans not being unique in this regard. And it must also be noted that
opportunities for such progress have never by any means been limited to the US,
and indeed the US has never been unique in this regard either. In fact, many
nations have higher standards of living and much more compassionate societies
than does the US, and it has always been as easy to 'succeed' in Canada or
Germany or Italy as in America. American exceptionalism and jingoism
notwithstanding, the path to success or the top has never been notably easier
in the US than in many other nations.
And
finally, of all nations in the world today, it is China that offers the most
opportunity for progress and increasing prosperity and, most importantly, that
provides this offer to virtually the nation's entire population. While it may
be true of China as of all nations, that only good connections and good
breeding will get you an invitation to an embassy dinner party, it is also true
that in China as in no other nation in the world today can such a high
proportion of the people harbor hopes for the future with such a high
probability of fruition. It is China, not America, that has created an
environment for true and almost universal potential for progress for all. And,
while many Americans will refuse to believe this, it is the quality of China's
leaders, the fact of China's one-party government system, and China's unique
version of socialist capitalism that have made this possible. The very factors
that Americans have credited with the presumed success of their nation are in
reality the same elements that are destroying their American dream. The signs
of both these statements are obvious wherever one cares to look, but by
the time the Americans clear their minds of the clouds of propaganda it will be
too late. I am not so much worried for the Americans, but it concerns
me greatly that too many Chinese will also fail to clear their minds of the
propaganda and false branding until it is too late.
*
Mr. Romanoff's writing
has been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150
foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well
as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired
management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions
in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export
business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai's Fudan University,
presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr.
Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books
generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors
to Cynthia McKinney's new anthology 'When China Sneezes'. (Chapt. 2 -- Dealing
with Demons). http://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/2187/
His
full archive can be seen at:
http://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/
and https://www.moonofshanghai.com/
He
can be contacted at:
