Post by stepheneubanks on Feb 8, 2016 3:36:28 GMT
The American Dream is the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. The key word to look at in the definition is "opportunity", meaning the successful life that people dream of obtaining is a goal, a goal that they need to work for in order to achieve. Many people today believe that the American Dream should be given to those who fall behind and are no longer able to obtain it, but this is not the point of the "Dream", not everyone gets it and people need to realize this. The Land of Opportunity doesn't mean you are 100% guaranteed a successful life, in a way you could look at opportunity as a gamble, you don't know whether or not you will definitely have a good life, but it is possible if you put effort towards it. The way that all of this is possible is because of our current economic system of capitalism. Capitalism being the economic system that the US and many other successful countries around the world use. In the economic system of capitalism, the trade and industry of a nation are controlled by private companies, and in these private companies create capital, being wealth for the nation and their own private needs. Through these private companies jobs and careers are created for those who are eager to achieve a successful life and fulfill the American Dream, through this process those who work harder gain better careers and through this are paid better than those in lower ranks careers or jobs. Some people in the country eventually are able to own their own privatized company and are able to create capital and jobs for others. These people are usually looked at as the "bad guys" or the "rich", those who have created immense wealth for themselves through their businesses and because of this are able to create job opportunities for millions of others across the nation and around the world as well. I could go into more detail about the economic system of capitalism, but these basic ideas are enough to understand how it works and why it works so well to fit the idea of "opportunity". For some reason many people have this strange idea that either socialism or democratic socialism is the answer for the nations problem, this is actually the opposite, lowered cost of education and healthcare in order to provide for the people (just for example) create immense debt for nation. This is easily seen with our current failure of a president, Barack Obama, who has suspended and eliminated the debt limit to pay for social security, medicare, and Obamacare, resulting in the direct outcome of a current $19 trillion debt, that continues to rise at a rapid rate. I understand that we have had a national debt from the federal government for while now, this is a given, as many nations around the world today have debt as well especially from past wars, but this debt has gone too far and does not stop because of this federal spending and will continue to so with the current presidential candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, not to mention the rising taxes of the middle and upper class that will come out of these plans. The reason I bring up the failure of socialism is that it is seen as the enemy of capitalism, in this type of economic environment the American Dream of hard work and rising above the rest is dead. To conclude, the American Dream is still capable of being achieved, but only by those who are willing to put forward all of their effort and skill to obtain this goal. Many people fall behind into the lower class category and eventually into losing their house, job and wealth. This being a crucial part of Social Darwinism, that those who are willing to fight for their success and wealth continue to gain success and wealth while those who are weaker and less eager to work for their own success will continue to fall behind until they have virtually nothing to their name. Remember everyone, nothing is fair, sometimes you have to fight for what you want and continue to strive for your own success to achieve your American Dream.
