What is the American dream?
Whether or not the American dream is dead ultimately depends on how you define it. Who is qualified to do so? An historian? an economist? a statistician? a sociologist? Who is trained to separate partisan bias from rigorous science or even truly balanced analysis of this issue? Are all definitions created equal?
As an historian, I would say that the American dream as most widely understood is the chance for a decent life if you work hard, hustle, and have a little bit of luck. The two fundamental forms of the dream are the immigrant version and the native born version. For immigrants the American dream is about having a better chance than they would have had in their home country. This version has never been more a reality than today when the difference between home country standards of living and American standards is wider than ever. With respect to the native born version, there is no doubt that Americans as a rule have decent lives by any absolute historical standard and that technology has made the quality of life dramatically better whether in terms of the quality of health care or accessibility of educational opportunities. The internet has given to even the poorest access more information and world class teachers than even the richest Americans had 30 years ago. Never in human history has it been possible for a motivated child to leverage his talent so rapidly as now.
But, wait. What about other definitions? What about the chances of getting out of the bottom quintile definition used in the 2007 study? Are there others?
In 2016 Raj Chetty came out with a different angle on social mobility in America.
This time he defined the American dream as making more than your parents which he calls “absolute mobility” versus “relative mobility.” But this is tricky. First, it is clear that you could have a very decent life without making more than your parents because your parents already had a decent life. In the 1950s making more than your parents meant merely escaping the destitution of the Great Depression – a very low bar. Making more than your parents when they lived in the affluent sixties or the roaring 1980s is a much higher bar. The law of diminishing returns is powerful and ineluctable. If you can have a decent life without working at all and instead playing a complex social welfare system, well then why bother? If you are taught that you are a victim of a corrupt system and that it does not make sense to work hard, why should you? If you are taught to follow your dream and avoid the standard rat race and instead of studying to be an engineer or accountant be rock star, athlete, or shoot for the moon and be the next Bill Gates, would it be surprising that your income is not higher than your parents on average?
The gap between common sense and so-called social science is widening.
I am more and more convinced that social “science” at least to the extent that it touches on policy related issues is really no more than partisan ranting in drag.