The Concept of the American Dream - Essay Example

21 April America’s Wealthy: Introduction: Every American is familiar with the concept of the American Dream. It is this concept which attracts a great number of foreigners to the US every year. This is because they believe in their hearts that anyone can become financially stable in this country because opportunities are made available to everyone and wealth is distributed evenly. But, American is also a big supporter of the idea of democracy and heartily supports all measures to implement this practice. The truth is that these two ideas, democracy and the American Dream, have the potential to clash with each other over the distribution of wealth. Certain questions appear to be very problematic for many Americans who seek the American Dream and they have trouble finding the answers. The purpose of this essay is to answer those questions by evaluating what the research literature has to say on the subject. The following discussion will also provide evidence for inequality of wealth in the US to suggest how difficult it is to live the American Dream for Americans themselves, let alone for people coming from other countries. Social media in the form of viral YouTube videos has also become more active now than ever before to make it clear just how vicious the wealth gap in the US has become. These kind of worrisome issues induce one to think if it is really possible anymore to live the American Dream or not. How is wealth distributed in the United States? The concept behind the American Dream is that every person is born equal and is entitled to equal rights and opportunities regardless of gender, racial, cultural, or religious differences. If this is held true, there should be no riots witnessed in the US because every person should be supposedly content and financially stable. However, it is actually the reversal of this idea, upon which the entire belief system of the country is based, that the wealth gap is steadily widening instead of decreasing. Due to increasing wealth gap, people from the middle class and working class have to suffer the most. In the present times of unbelievably steep rates, it is quite agonizing to survive on a less than $10 per hour salary which is the case for most employees in the US. The rich just keep on getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. According to a latest report, a giant chunk of the nation’s wealth, as much as 40%, is possessed by the top wealthiest. A handful of people have billions of US dollars in their hands and the vast majority, the bottom 80%, possesses only 7% of the nation’s wealth. These wealthiest people, who make up only 1% of the US population, “own more than 40% of the nation’s approximately $54 trillion in wealth” (Archer). The state of income inequality is so gross that majority of US workers have to work way longer than a month to earn even close to what a handful of people earn on hourly basis. It is this wealth gap which has given birth to a wide array of social problems over time. It has generated more crime, more hatred and resentment in the middle and working classes, and more law violations. When people are not given financial protection by the government by establishment of wealth equality, when they do not get to live the American Dream, and when the rich remain intent on monopolizing wealth, the entire societal structure of a country is seriously threatened. How does this distribution of wealth affect political power? This is an established fact that wealth distribution in the US is not fair, but highly concentrated. This concentration of wealth in a few hands directly clashes with the spirit of the American Dream. However, tragedy is that many Americans are uneducated about how drastically the wealth gap has widened in direct response to concentration of wealth. Superrich American families are financial donors of Republicans and Democrats which is why a latest 2014 research study claims that the governmental economic and financial policies mirror the desires of the rich. Almost all deals made by the President turn out to be beneficial for the rich, the top 10% of the US population. In contrast, lower-income people, who should actually benefit the most to close the wealth gap, are hurt and disadvantaged the most as a consequence of such deals as the debt ceiling deal sealed by the President Obama with Republicans back in 2011 (Boyer). Extreme wealth inequality, which is one of the biggest problematic issues encountering the US for past some decades, is a direct violation of the principles of social justice. This leads to corruption of democratic institutions. Such wealth inequality profoundly affects political power. It is claimed that “a more unequal wealth distribution means that government will be captured by a narrower range of interests” (Smith). Wealth inequality or corrupt distribution of wealth also affects political power in a multitude of other ways. For example, in the wake of this economic crisis, wealth and money in the hands of the most influential of people has managed to buy many politicians even though America is a democratic country. Research claims that political activity is the highest among the wealthy (Page, Bartels, and Seawright 53). This means that imbalanced wealth distribution corrupts political systems even in democratic societies. Research also suggests that the opinions of lower-income people have no statistical effect on their senators’ decisions because “senators appear to be considerably more responsive to the opinions of affluent constituents than to the opinions of middle-class constituents” (Bartels). Is it possible to live the American Dream in a political system of wealth inequality? The world famous American Dream is built on three beliefs- life, liberty, and happiness. Now, a political system where every adult has the right to vote, but which is grossly plagued by inequalities in access to politicians, wealth, income, and social position, only the richest and most influential govern the political system. Access to politicians or officials can be bought by wealth by way of hefty donations, while the middle class and poor class have virtually no access to these people. Research also claims that “there can be little doubt that the wealthy exert more political influence than the less affluent do” (Page, Bartels, and Seawright 51). This is very worrisome for democratic policy making. How can the government still call this country a democratic state when the most basic feature of democracy, which is that the officials should be continually responsive to all citizens on an equal basis, is brutally violated? All citizens, irrespective of their class differences, are not considered as political equals by the government. It is due to this behavior of politicians that policymakers do not attach any importance to the say of common people when designing political, social, or economic systems. Instead, there is more friendliness between policymakers and the top 10% of the US population. However, those superrich families do not represent the needs or focus on the welfare of the rest of the population which is why wealth inequality keeps on rising steadily and living the American Dream keeps on getting harder for a common individual. The extent to which wealth inequality plagues the political and economic system of the US can be judged by this fact alone that compared to $57,000 or 64% increase in average real income of the top American households from 1975 to 2003, “the average real income of the middle quintile increased by about $8,000 (23 percent) and the average real income of the poorest quintile increased by $853 (less than 10 percent)” (Bartels). Why there is wealth inequality and what do people think about it? As mentioned already, many Americans are not aware of the depth of this grave situation. This lack of education also contributes to wealth inequality as is suggested by Goldin and Katz. According to them, inequality is growing due to “an educational slowdown” (Goldin and Katz cited in Mankiw 288). Also, wealth inequality is such a big issue in the US because the affluent dominate the American politics. The politicians are more responsive to the affluent. This greatly undermines mobility of wealth and explains why “wealth inequality in the United States is at historic highs” (Norton and Ariely 9). Though all Americans agree on this fact that everyone should have identical access to good opportunities, but the priorities of the rich and common people differ by gigantic proportions. This difference also foments the wealth gap which is becoming more notorious with passing time. Everyone claims to believe in political equality, but the real situation is drastically different. The US political system is biased and influenced by wealthy interests. Such interests are not enthusiastically shared by the majority of the US population which has different priorities. While people from the middle and poor people are very passionate about different policies aimed at reducing wealth inequality and increasing economic opportunities for all, the superrich are less open to such approaches. Research suggests that to reach this superrich group, “your household has to make more than $400,000 a year” (Mankiw 287). In contrast, another research suggests that there is no difference in priorities between the rich and less rich or poor. It was found that “there was much more consensus than disagreement across groups from different sides of the political spectrum” (Norton and Ariely 12) regarding this desire for wealth equality. Conclusion: Concluding, the above discussion proves this point that wealth inequality is a very serious issue faced by the US. It is this wealth gap or unequal distribution of assets that has led many to claim that a giant revolt could also envelop the country in near future. This issue has grave repercussions for the social, economic, and political systems of the country. While some say that the rich are intent on monopolizing wealth, others claim that the rich class is not really antagonistic to the common public’s interests. However, the influence of the wealthy on the US political system is an established fact which negatively interferes with democracy and the theme of the American Dream. It is also a widely recognized fact today that the US is not living up to the ideals introduced by the American Dream. Struggle for the middle class has become more demonic, while the rich class seems to have no problem with upward mobility despite economic depression. In the context of politics and government, every citizen’s choice should be considered valuable. However, when attention is paid to people on grounds of how many million or billion dollars they have, the American Dream goes down the drain and the political system is governed by those who do not deserve to govern it. Works cited: Archer, Dale. Could America’s Wealth Gap Lead To A Revolt? Forbes, 09 Apr. 2013. Web. 21 Apr. 2014. Bartels, Larry M. Economic Inequality and Political Representation. Princeton.edu, Aug. 2005. Web. 21 Apr. 2014. Boyer, Dave. Obama to use State of the Union as opening salvo in 2014 midterms. The Washington Times, 26 Jan. 2014. Web. 21 Apr. 2014. Mankiw, Gregory N. “Spreading the Wealth Around: Reflections Inspired by Joe the Plumber.” Eastern Economic Journal 36 (2010): 285–298. Print. Norton, Michael I., and Ariely, Dan. “Building a Better America−−One Wealth Quintile at a Time.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6.1 (2011): 9–12. Print. Page, Benjamin, I., Bartels, Larry, M., and Seawright, Jason. “Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans.” Perspectives on Politics 11.1 (2013): 51-73. Print. Smith, Noah. How to Fix America’s Wealth Inequality: Teach Americans to Be Cheap. The Atlantic, 12 Mar. 2013. Web. 21 Apr. 2014. Read More