Great article, I agree wholeheartedly. When we compare ourselves to some of the more affluent Americans, it can seem like we have not achieved the ‘American Dream’ while those others, have. However, in contrast to many other nations, the average American, even he who lives in the ghetto is living a better life than the entire population of third world countries.
My dad achieved the American Dream when he immigrated to America. Growing up, his family enjoyed meat once a month, if that. Usually it was rice and some eggs. By contrast, even the poorest American family can afford to eat meat daily.
Freedom of speech, religion, want, and fear. Those were the four freedoms. We have forgotten what it really is like to ‘want’. The ‘want’ described in the past is not the ‘want’ we experience today, at least, not what the majority of Americans experience. We want big screen TVs, exotic cars, and mansions. We don’t ‘want’ for food, shelter, and clothing anymore, because we already have those basics.
I don’t know how we can change the perception of the American Dream, but I know that I’m living it. Excuse me while I make myself a sandwich with meat. 
on the other hand one might ask whether the average american does live a better life, properly understood, than many people in other nations. there is no doubt that he can buy more stuff, but that was never what the american dream used to be about.
Yes (well at least till the past year).
Pictured: The credit crunch tent city which has returned to haunt America | Mail Online
Perhaps this in part reflects Saturn in Leo (which has now transited into Virgo).
Saturn in Leo
Nature’s cycles have a habit of correcting excesses with time…
True, the idea of what a better life is open to discussion, and is certainly, to a degree, subjective. I’m not even considering the fact that we can buy more stuff. Even a basic resource such as water is of better quality in America compared to other developing countries. As far as our biological needs go, I believe it is safe to say that we enjoy a higher quality of life.
However, when it comes to the intangibles, such as quality of society/culture, it is much harder to distinguish which is ‘better’, if we can even determine that there is such a ‘better’ society exists.
How do you see the ‘American Dream’?
I hadn’t heard of this yet. It’s rather shocking and I am surprised. I lack the background knowledge to fully comment on it other than: Wow, that sucks. I feel for you guys.
Even so, the fact that this image is shocking to us when others have been living their whole lives in a similar state in other countries, says something about our quality of life. We expect that people do not live in such conditions because it is not considered the norm. This is in stark contrast to others who may view living in shacks the norm.
They do. I guess we’ll have to sit back and watch what happens? Well no, not just sit back, we’ll try our hardest to avoid the inevitable, but essentially, where unstoppable time is concerned, we’re just sitting around watching what happens.
I always thought the American Dream meant; substantial wealth, a trophy wife/husband, a mansion with a pool in a gated community over looking the ocean..etc..You know, like in the movies 
Well, that’s exactly what the article is addressing. The way that our interpretation of the ‘American Dream’ has changed over time. It’s a long read, but it’s interesting.
Sometimes you have to look at things other than “buying stuff” to calculate a “quality of life”. Consider that the US is tied with Guam at 35th inlife expectancy, or that we are 37th in health care. This is behind countries like Chile, Morocco, Oman and Costa Rica and just barely ahead of Cuba. When talking about infant mortality, Guam, Cuba, and Gibraltar do better than we do.
These are some things that I think counts toward “quality of life”. 
I always thought the American Dream was freedom to pursue happiness, in whatever form you wanted, without government interference.
Some of those rankings seem odd. I can believe a shorter life expectancy what with car crashes and the like.
I would like to hear an explanation of the infant mortality rates, that seems kind of fishy to me. If I had a premature or high risk baby I would rather have it in the U.S. than Cuba.
U.K. and Cuba with better health care? I am not from the U.S. but from what I have heard of the respective systems that seems unlikely. That website says the WHO quit doing those rankings in 2000 because it was too complex. Japan is 10th.
There’s a possibility that there are less reported infant mortalities compared to the actual number, which could skew the results.
Consider 3 single, teenage minority mothers. One in inner city Detroit, one in inner city Manchester (UK) and one in inner city Havana (Cuba). Two of them will get regular medical and dental care and their babies will get regular “well baby” care. The other will maybe get seen for a prenatal visit and get to go to a hospital for delivery, but beyond that the only medical care she and her baby is going to get is when things get so bad she has to go or take her baby to an emergency room. There will be no “well baby” care or regular dental check ups. Which would you want to be??
Before you say yes, but they have to wait so long for an appointment think about this. I receive medical care (I’m one of the lucky ones) from an HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) where I have to wait months to get an appointment and a large dental practice (again lucky) where I also have to wait months for an appointment. No different from say the UK except here I’m an exception with my medical and dental care where in the UK I would be the normal, everyone has this level of care. And if you say that in the UK those who can afford it go elsewhere for care, well, those here who can afford it go to the Mayo clinic for their care, meanwhile a lot of people here receive no medical or dental care.
Isn’t that funny that just two months ago my Dad needed dental care. I called the local dentist and the appointment taker was like what type of insurance does he have. I told her that he was on medicaid/TNcare. She was like we aren’t taking any new patients. My brother and I both go to him and I reminded her that it would be so much more convenient for all of us to continue seeing the same dentist rather than finding a new dentist. All of a sudden she could accept him but his appointment was two months out.
Then, to my surprise, I found out Dad didn’t have any dental plan. So I called the dentist again and told them we would pay cash. Wouldn’t you know it, they had an appointment open up in a week and he was all done in less than the time it would have taken just for his first appointment to arrive. He still would have been waiting a month from now.
As a Canadian I have no dental care. The system is privatized and while I have to pay out of pocket I have no problems getting an appointment. Dental care is FAR more economical than health care though and I’m not sure a completely private solution for medical care is the way to go for any country.
As for Cuba I’m not sure there ARE any wait times, I’m just unsure about the quality of care. For example. I know a guy who married a woman from Cuba. While in Canada she found a lump on her breast and tried to make a doctor appointment. The earliest she could get was something like a month away. She demanded her husband take her back to Cuba for treatment. My friend asked her husband why she would want to do that. He replied “that she would be seen immediately. They would probably cut her entire breast off immediately, without tests, but she would be seen immediately.” I’m not sure I would call that quality medical care.
As for the U.S. system I thought no one could legally be denied treatment. You might go broke paying the bills but you could not be denied treatment. As with Steve’s dental example , I’m sure the medical equivalent happens. I said I’m not very familiar with the U.S. system so I couldn"t say if or how often that happens.
I guy I know has studied the U.S. medical system. He says all the profit comes from people without insurance but with assets. That is people with no assets and no insurance pay little or nothing for health care. Either the government covers it or there is nothing to sieze. People with insurance are covered. People with no insurance have their houses and businesses seized by the hospital. The government can negotiate cut rates for the hospital expenses they pay for, big insurance companies can negotiate cut rates for their expenses and that leaves individuals to pay the majority of the expenses. That is why hospital prices are so high.
I’m not sure what the answer is. It appears the current system doesn’t work very well but other systems aren’t working that well either.
Why do the mothers in your example have to be minorites?
Are there no free clinics or such in the U.S. for the mothers to go to for health checkups? I don’t know much about the U.S. system but I thought I had heard of such things.
First 2 google links.
Free Healthcare Clinics in Detroit, Michigan - Associated Content
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan - Features - 2008 Free Clinic Grants
The more I consider this article, the more I don’t care for it. I not sure I really like the preachy tone and the “everybody is too stupid to enjoy life without me telling them how” theme. Not that much of what is presented isn’t true, it’s just the basic premise that people need to be told how to be happy that I find annoying. Maybe I just need a nap.
I didn’t see what you saw. Would you please articulate your opinion further? I’m curious about what I may have overlooked.
“But those eras do offer lessons in scale and self-control. The American Dream should require hard work, but it should not require 80-hour workweeks and parents who never see their kids from across the dinner table. The American Dream should entail a first-rate education for every child, but not an education that leaves no extra time for the actual enjoyment of childhood. The American Dream should accommodate the goal of home ownership, but without imposing a lifelong burden of unmeetable debt. Above all, the American Dream should be embraced as the unique sense of possibility that this country gives its citizens—the decent chance, as Moss Hart would say, to scale the walls and achieve what you wish.”
If people want to work 80 hours a week that is THEIR business, if they want to use debt to own home that is THEIR decision. Why is some magazine telling them what THEIR American Dream should be.
“In hewing to the misbegotten notion that our standard of living must trend inexorably upward,”
Why is it a misbegotten notion that our standard of living must improve? That is how new innovations improve our lives. What if that statement was universally accepted before indoor plumbing. People should have the freedom to decide what new products they will buy to improve their lives, not be told where they should set their standard of living by a journalist.
“But this latest recalibration saw the American Dream get decoupled from any concept of the common good (the movement to privatize Social Security began to take on momentum) and, more portentously, from the concepts of working hard and managing one’s expectations.”
People are working 80 hour weeks but the American dream is decoupled from working hard? Hmm.
"And what about the outmoded proposition that each successive generation in the United States must live better than the one that preceded it? While this idea is still crucial to families struggling in poverty and to immigrants who’ve arrived here in search of a better life than that they left behind, it’s no longer applicable to an American middle class that lives more comfortably than any version that came before it. (Was this not one of the cautionary messages of the most thoughtful movie of 2008, wall-e?) I’m no champion of downward mobility, but the time has come to consider the idea of simple continuity: the perpetuation of a contented, sustainable middle-class way of life, where the standard of living remains happily constant from one generation to the next.
Why can’t people strive for a better standard of living if they want to?
As I said, I agree with much of the article. I sure don’t want to spend my entire life working. I don’t overspend or use credit to finance a lifestyle beyond my means. However if someone else wants to, go ahead. Just face the consequences and take responsibility for your actions. Unfortunately, now, the people who do live responsibly are being forced to pay for the people who don’t.
Chads, thanks for taking the time to outline your thoughts. I can see where you are coming from now, and while I didn’t interpret it the way you did, I can see how others might. I got the impression that the writer was simply saying ‘Guys, the America Dream is still attainable by all, but it requires revising the idea of what that dream is.’ I didn’t really get the impression that he was trying to impose his idea of the American Dream.
Thank you for asking the question. It gave me alot to think about. The more I think about it, the more I realize it isn’t so much this article in particular but the media in general. These are thoughts that have been percolating in my mind for some time and are just starting to bubble out. I don’t know if the media has been manipulating things more lately or I just notice it more.
A magazine article like this is obviously going to have an opinion. That is more acceptable then say a purported “news” piece manipulating things and having an opinion.
I guess what it comes down to is something I read in a Tony Robbins book I think. Something to the effect of “You can’t achieve happiness but you can happily achieve”. This article seems to say “You can’t achieve happiness so f*#k it. Set your sights lower and enjoy your meagre existence as best you can.”
Why stop improving our standard of living now, when we are so close to having robot maids, virtual reality tv and flying cars.
Also thank you to Pheroquirk for posting. Just because the article annoys me doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy reading it.
that in a nutshell is my american dream
unfortunately America is becoming more and more a socialist country and less and less about freedoms that started when our founding fathers had in mind
i think we need another boston tea party and not just for taxes but just to stop govt interference in general
I think a controversial but defensible stance might be that actually one can assess the quality of a culture in certain dimensions, and that it is possible to determine that such a quality is improving or deteriorating with time. One might also say hold the belief that it is not possible to talk about quality in an objective sense and that no values should be privileged over any others has contributed to a civilizational decline of some magnitude.
It is interesting that some pick up artists, such as Roissy, who come from rather a different perspective from many of the more traditional observers of this social domain have made observations along these lines. One doesn’t need to be religious to note that the idea that there are no consequences to certain kinds of behaviour that would once have been frowned upon is a very modern one, and we have yet to fully appreciate the long-term impact on our culture and civilisation
The idea not that everyone could be rich and famous but that what class you came from, how much money you were born with and who were your ancestors could not stop you from having a decent chance at achieving the highest position in society, whatever that might mean to you. To understand the novelty of that idea one has to contrast it with how things have been in other societies, where class, religion and family ties have always counted for much more in determining what possibilities are open to you.
Well, that is an interesting moral question. Suppose you can see what is coming as a result of decisions people are making now. Suppose you can see that people that vote are still not aware of how things are deteriorating as a result of decisions taken by politicians they support and that until they experience very much more difficult times there is just no way that policies that will stem the rot will find support, should you try to fight the tide of bad ideas knowing that it is basically futile? Or is it better to bide your time, husband your resources and wait for the right moment?
Spending on healthcare has very little empirical connection with life expectancy. Diet, culture and the way you live dominate. Once you have the basics covered (and, honestly, that means sewers and availability of basic antibiotics) economists have really struggled to find any connection. Obviously selective expenditure on healthcare can improve ones quality of life, but it’s not clear that either the very heavily regulated US healthcare system or the state-run NHS in the UK do a particularly good job of allocating resources. There is one very articulate and creative doctor who has written about his experiences of aspects of the US system - worth checking out Kevin Pezzi’s website.
Sometimes a society goes down the wrong track. If it’s not the job of a magazine author to point this out when he believes it has happened, I’m not sure whose role it should be. People are working harder than ever, but has the quality of life improved? It seems to me that although technology has progressed, life in many ways is not better and is in some ways worse than in the 60s. Certainly real hourly wages have been stagnating for a while. One can explore different reasons for this but tax rates, the role of the state and the discouragement of savings by easy money might have something to do with this.