Having the American Dream should not be an entitlement

Rather, you should be entitled to the pursuit of the American Dream.

From Mark Perry’s blog post, Opening the Floodgates:

Government housing policies turned “good renters into bad homeowners” and created an unsustainable housing bubble.  It’s now becoming apparent that government education policies have turned “good high school graduates, many of whom should have pursued tw0-year degrees or other forms of career training, into unemployable college graduates with excessive levels of student loan debt that can’t be discharged,” and created an unsustainable higher education bubble.

That got me thinking that the underlying driver of politics — both liberal and conservative — of the past decade or two has been to try to guarantee the achievement of the American Dream, rather than guarantee its pursuit.

Politicians tried to remove “barriers” to home ownership, college education, cadillac health insurance, jobs and an overall comfortable life. By doing so, they’ve changed what these things mean. Back in the day, having a pair of Jordache jeans meant something…until everybody had a pair.

It’s a grave misconception to view all hurdles to achieving the American Dream as discretionary and unfair barriers. Most are not barriers, they are readiness measures.

Consider college education. In the old days you had to work hard to earn it. Even if you were fortunate enough to have parents who would cover your college costs, you still had to make the grades to stay in. If you had to scrounge to finance it yourself, even better. That meant you were a self-starter and could balance financial and academic responsibilities.

Getting a college degree wasn’t easy. Earning one demonstrated that you had some moxie. Employers valued that because they wanted people who could contribute to their organization.

Making it easier to get a college degree changed its meaning. College degrees no longer signal intelligent self-starters with moxie. Now degrees are signals risk averse, color-by-numbers people. Bureaucratic employers value these people for their conformity and aversion to risk.

Home ownership is another good example. In the old days you were expected to make a down payment of 20% and take out a loan that you could repay.

Having saved enough to make a 20% down payment was a test. Passing this test demonstrated to lenders that you had enough financial discipline to keep your expenses in check and save money, which means you will pay your mortgage each month. It also gave you a vested interest in maintaining your property.

Removing this barrier (or readiness test) changed the meaning of home ownership. As someone once said, a homeowner with no or negative equity in their home is a renter.

Rather than wanting politicians to give us the American Dream (and destroy it in the process), we should ask government to help ensure that we can pursue it.

That means keeping us safe from foreign invaders and keeping our fellow citizens and government from infringing on our freedoms.

Well put

I’ll give Santorum credit for finding a concise and accurate way to describe those who want everybody to go to college, like President Obama, “What a snob!”

Jeff Jacoby writes about Santorum’s dig on Obama here and how it elicited criticism from, well…snobs:

Ridiculous? Offensive? Hypocritical? Manifestly, all of the above,” wrote Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post. On The Daily Show, the inimitable Jon Stewart was beside himself: “Just to be clear,” he said, “you’re coming out against people educating their kids because it’s – fancy?” Vice President Joe Biden assured a radio interviewer that Santorum had managed to separate himself from “all of America on this.”

A note to Jon Stewart: Just to be clear, no, Santorum didn’t come out against anybody educating their kids. That’s a straw man fallacy.

Santorum came out against the idea that college be considered the only path worth pursuing and using government policy to reinforce that mythical idea.

And Santorum meant that it’s snobbish to ignore the good work done by millions of people in this country who don’t have college degrees, but still managed to contribute to society and achieve the American Dream.

I know plenty of such people. They are business owners, electricians, factory workers and railroad workers. They build roads, program computers and edit video. They work on garage doors, paint houses, build fences, clean windows, fix cars and tractors and run restaurants.

They also start companies like Microsoft, win Oscar awards and play professional sports.

Many of these folks do amazing things that they didn’t learn in a classroom.

For example, I’m amazed that a painter I use can finish painting a room quicker than it would for me to set up and start, and his product looks far better than anything I’ve tried to paint.

I was amazed by the movers I hired a few years ago to move the heavy stuff from my old house to my new house. They accomplished in 3 hours what would have taken me days. I would have strained my muscles, maybe injured myself and I’m sure I would have marked up my walls or damage my furniture.

The path to the American Dream isn’t about going to college.

It’s about adopting a set of behaviors that includes a strong work ethic, integrity, personal responsibility, ability to get along with others, productivity, willingness to learn, careful consideration of decisions and resourcefulness, among other things.

The folks I mentioned above, who didn’t go to college, would score well on these behaviors. Likewise, I know folks who did go to college, who are struggling to achieve the American Dream and would score low on these behaviors.

We’d be far better off if we encouraged and reinforced the behaviors that lead to the American Dream, rather than encouraging shortcuts to achieving a facade of the American Dream.

What is the American Dream?

At one time I thought it meant the freedom pursue our interests and attempt to build the life we envisioned for ourselves and our families, without undue interference from others — private citizens or government officials.

There was no guarantee that you’d make it, but there was some assurance that our own government and others would not get in your way, so long as you didn’t get in the way of others.

The American Dream seemed to embody the fighting spirit.  To borrow an old cliche, if you got knocked of the horse, you got back on and tried again and didn’t whine about it.

It seemed everyone was expected to tend to their responsibilities.  Take care of your family and your home.  Raise your kids to be responsible and productive.  Don’t leave a mess.  When you visit someone’s home, respect their rules.

Folks did what they could to help others out.  Sometimes that meant giving them some short term relief from their unlucky circumstances (though even this was somehow understood to be temporary and that at some point the recipient would be expected to get on their own two feet again).  Sometimes it meant teaching the habits, skills and discipline that enabled them to come closer to their American Dream.

Over the decades, other ideas of the American Dream have come about.   Some folks seem to think the American Dream should be a life without struggle, risk, change, tough choices or hurt feelings where everyone is entitled to some “I-know-it-when-I-see-it” minimum standard of living regardless of their own choices and behaviors.

Now it seems, if we get knocked down, we look to blame someone.  We complain that there aren’t jobs for us.  Then when jobs do come , we complain that they don’t pay enough (never stopping to consider that it must be enough for the folks who agreed to work for that wage).

Or, if someone chooses ignore their responsibilities, we make excuses.  We view it as if not tending to their responsibilities is beyond their control or a systematic problem to be solved.  Instead of encouraging them to tend to their responsibilities, we seek to “change the system” to make it easier for them.  If a student doesn’t gain mastery of a subject in school, we assume there must be something wrong with the subject or the way it is taught, even though many others who did their homework or sought extra help, or both, didn’t seem to have a problem.

What is the American Dream?