Fundamental Flaws: On The American Dream

Between them these two books sum up our present predicament. Capitalism leads to dole queues, the scramble for markets, and war. Collectivism leads to concentration camps, leader worship, and war. There is no way out of this unless a planned economy can somehow be combined with the freedom of the intellect, which can only happen if the concept of right and wrong is restored to politics.
---George Orwell

If you listen to anyone on the right side of the aisle you know two things 1) You should be afraid of European Socialism and 2) If you just work hard you will be rich and successful. That second point is the basic foundation of the so called "American Dream' and the basis for the Anti-Welfare Argument. Hard Work equals Success thus Failure equals Laziness. Read that sentence again. Now, does that make any sense?

I found a Howard Zinn quote that sums up my point here, if I may,

---Why should we accept that the "talent" of someone who writes jingles for an advertising agency advertising dog food and gets $100,000 a year is superior to the talent of an auto mechanic who makes $40,000 a year? Who is to say that Bill Gates works harder than the dishwasher in the restaurant he frequents, or that the CEO of a hospital who makes $400,000 a year works harder than the nurse or the orderly in that hospital who makes $30,000 a year? The president of Boston University makes $300,000 a year. Does he work harder than the man who cleans the offices of the university? Talent and hard work are qualitative factors which cannot be measured quantitatively. ---

Right now the richest person in the world, according to Forbes Magazine, is Carlos Slim. Now Mr. Slim was not born into wealth and, in his own way, worked his way up from the bottom. But, and this is key, he is an investor, meaning he makes money by giving people money. To suggest that giving people money is harder than, say, building a road, saving someone's life, or fighting in the military is a little ludicrous. Now, just to be clear, I am not saying that Mr. Slim has done anything wrong, he made his money in a perfectly legitimate way. He has also been generous with his money(he has donated four billion, yes billion, dollars to his charitable foundation however this is the core of my problem.

If a child complains that something is not fair what is the first response that pops into our heads? "Life Isn't Fair" and that's correct, but creates a problem with the so-called American Dream. The assumption that Hard Work=Success and Laziness=Failure is that the playing field is level which it just simply is not.

You may wonder why I care. So what if the American Dream is silly, so what if it makes no sense, it's just a cliche. But, it isn't. It's a way to view the world that many people have and if you view the world in that way then you will oppose welfare, because we're just subsidizing laziness. But, if we agree that the American Dream is flawed and Failure does not equal Laziness, then it is impossible to say that welfare is equivalent to subsidizing laziness.