This is essay #8 in the series The Revolution No One Sees Coming.This is a long essay because it can’t be summarized, so bear with me.I consider it self-evident that The American Dream is dead, but we don’t dare admit, we can’t bear to admit it, because the only possible result of this is revolution in one form or another.
Let’s start with self-interest, which is now the starting point for everything in America now, whether we care to admit it or not.I don’t “like” my analysis and the resulting forecast, nor am I “talking my book,” reaping some private gain (promoting nuclear power because I own uranium stocks, skimming big bucks from doom-scrolling, etc.) My web traffic and earnings from writing have been more or less stable for 15 years (depreciated by inflation, of course), with the changes being in the mix of sources of traffic and income, not the total traffic / earnings. Nor does it give me any pleasure to state that The American Dream is dead. It is a dreadful reality that is inescapable. For individuals and households, the foundation of America is The American Dream: that home ownership and financial security are within reach of average people doing average work earning average incomes, as long as they are hard-working and prudent with their money. This is no longer the reality, but denialists go to extraordinary lengths to promote the exceptions to prove the rule: yes, it’s still possible to buy a house, all you have to do is make a top 10% income and live in a closet eating ramen, or share a one-bedroom flat with five other people, for five years, and work remotely so you can buy a house in a cheap locale with few jobs.The reality is even these sacrifices no longer lead to home ownership and financial security. Life doesn’t get easier and more secure, it’s a slog of ever more unpaid shadow-work, higher costs of living and increasing precarity.Saying this out loud unleashes firestorms of denial and protestations that America is still the land of opportunity because people with literally no prospects to get ahead in their home country want to move here. Yes, if there are no jobs and no prospects, then even the lowest pay and highest precarity in the US are desirable because the goal is earning cash that can then be sent home, where it will buy a great deal more than it does in the US. That is a dream that makes use of the American economy’s need for low-paying precarious jobs, but it’s not the American Dream of average people doing average work earning average incomes acquiring home ownership and financial security via average prudent money management, not one demanding enormous sacrifices that still aren’t enough.There is a generational denial that reality has changed, because older generations base their opinions on conditions that no longer exist. I have repeatedly laid this out in the most insightful possible way, which is the purchasing power of wages measured in rent, home ownership and the cost of living.This method strips out the illusions created by nominal dollar amounts. Am I better off now earning $65,000 (the median full-time wage in the US) than I was earning $20,000 in the 1980s?No, because my hours of labor buy so much less now: my earnings now buy less of everything, other than occasional purchases like TVs, laptops and clothing. Everything that counts as major expenses is far more costly now when measured in the hours of labor needed to buy them.This is undeniable fact, and so we dare not admit it, can’t bear to admit it, because it’s the death certificate of The American Dream.
The evidence that The American Dream is dead is all around us, and it takes an extremely obstinate level of denial to keep insisting that the problem isn’t the socio-political-economic system that dictates the incentives and rules of everyday life, it’s that young people don’t want to work hard, etc.
CHS NOTE: the Revolution No One Sees Coming will not just be a series of external events, it will be personal, as each of us will face situations we didn’t choose whose novelty and scale may exceed our previous experience. History is full of changes no one thought possible a few years earlier. No one else is writing about it like I am, so a subscription--which costs the same as a few sushi--is a unique value. Thank you for supporting my work.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.