Rude Awakening from the American Dream

The chance to get ahead regardless of race, heritage or social status has defined the “American Dream” for years. Increasing social imbalances, however, are threatening that dream.

It was the Occupy Movement’s main theme last year, and it was also a major theme when the Republican primaries began: Growing social inequality in the United States at first got thousands into the streets to protest against the Wall Street financial elites. Then popular anger turned toward Republican front runner Mitt Romney. The multimillionaire became a poster boy for the unjust distribution of income and wealth in America.

Why? Romney not only accumulated his fortune as a coldly calculating corporate hatchet man, he also showed little sympathy for the victims of competitive pressures and globalization. That point is sure to reemerge full force as a campaign theme, by this autumn at the latest, because Obama’s reelection team won’t let the opportunity to cast Romney as a ruthless capitalist slip past them.

The problem is, this discussion misses the actual core of the problem entirely. American citizens shouldn’t worry about widening social inequality — American society has never been socially equal and, in truth, has never really tried to be.

Furthermore, faced with criticism from the Occupy Movement, many prominent politicians consider the inequality charge to be “un-American.” Entrepreneur Herman Cain who was ahead of Romney in the polls just a few months ago had little sympathy for the protesters: “If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself.” That remark mainly resulted in one thing for Cain: Praise.

The true weakness in American society is something else: decreasing social mobility.

Since the nation was founded, America’s social contract has been based on the idea that upward mobility between social classes was at least a possibility if not a given fact. It’s this assumption that allows the many disadvantages of American life to be ignored in favor of the chance to get ahead regardless of race, heritage or social status. This is at the core of the “American Dream.” But that assumption is little more than exactly that — an assumption. Of course, politicians never tire of trumpeting America as the land of unlimited opportunity. But the facts haven’t supported the “American Dream” vision for some time now. Surveys conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Pew Charitable Trust, the Brookings Institution and the German Institute for the Study of Labor reveal that upward social mobility opportunities in the United States are now lower than they are in Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark. In other words, citizens of those nations have a better chance to get ahead than their American counterparts.

It also holds true that in the nation that puts so much store in equal opportunity, one’s starting point is so important in determining where one will end up. Forty-two percent of Americans from low-income families remain in the low-income category themselves. In contrast, in Denmark and Sweden, this is only the case for 25 percent of Swedes and Danes, and in Britain 30 percent.

Here’s where social disparities come into play. Researchers have also discovered that the greater the gap between rich and poor, the harder it is to transfer between social classes. The real estate crisis has exacerbated this chasm because losing their homes took away one major underpinning of middle class net worth. The gap between rich and poor, however, is just one of several factors. Technological advances as well as the rise of emerging economies — and the resulting pressure on wages — contribute at least in equal measure to reduced mobility and increased inequality.

Analysts are in agreement about the problem as well as about the solution: The current trend can only be stopped and possibly reversed through better education. No other factor is tied to social progress as much as education. Any honest election, therefore, has to emphasize schools, academics and education levels. Unfortunately, those items don’t lend themselves well to political political campaign media sound bites.