The American Dream

"Everyone has the opportunity for prosperity and success, regardless of their background and based solely upon their ability or achievement." That is the basis on which the increasingly elusive American dream is built, and it's a good description of the "meritocracy". Unfortunately these falsehoods have led America to become not only the richest country on Earth, but also the least happy. If you're wondering how this is possible, this post is for you.

_{Image by geralt - source: Pixabay}

"The less you eat, drink and buy books, the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house, the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence etc., the more you save, the greater becomes your treasure which either moths nor dust will devour, your capital. The less you are, the less you express your life, the more you have, i.e. the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being."
_{source: marxists.org}

These words are from Karl Marx and are, as stated in today's video, as true now as they were 150 years ago when they were written. The ideology of neoliberalism has duped us into believing the we are the sole masters of our fates, and that if we don't achieve prosperity and success, all we need to do is to "pull ourselves up by our bootstraps". Which is impossible. I mean literally, physically impossible, and the saying originally meant to indicate that something was impossible indeed:

The saying "to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps" was already in use during the 19th century as an example of an impossible task. The idiom dates at least to 1834, when it appeared in the Workingman's Advocate: "It is conjectured that Mr. Murphee will now be enabled to hand himself over the Cumberland river or a barn yard fence by the straps of his boots." In 1860 it appeared in a comment on philosophy of mind: "The attempt of the mind to analyze itself [is] an effort analogous to one who would lift himself by his own bootstraps."
_{source: Wikipedia}

It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it. So many of our modern beliefs, the American Dream, the whole absurd bootstraps story and the meritocracy lie, have been planted in the collective subconscious mind by the ruling elites, something Marx tried to warn us about. Here's the conclusion of his 1844 quote at the start of this post:

"Everything which the political economist takes from you in life and in humanity, he replaces for you in money and in wealth; and all the things which you cannot do, your money can do. It can eat and, drink, go to the dance hall and the theatre; it can travel, it can appropriate art, learning, the treasures of the past, political power – all this it can appropriate for you – it can buy all this: it is true endowment. Yet being all this, it wants to do nothing but create itself, buy itself; for everything else is after all its servant, and when I have the master I have the servant and do not need his servant. All passions and all activity must therefore be submerged in avarice. The worker may only have enough for him to want to live, and may only want to live in order to have that."
_{source: marxists.org}

It all comes down to this: you, the average worker, are nothing but a tool whose life is dedicated to increasing the wealth of the billionaires you so adore. Well, maybe not you specifically, dear reader, but I believe you know what I mean. Today's video correctly states that the productivity of workers has increased 400% over the past half century. That should result in having to work just 10 hours per week instead of 40 for the same productivity and the same income; that's very much simplified, I know, but the principle stands. Instead the American worker now works more hours than any other worker in the world, is the least happy and has no paid sick-leave or parental leave. That doesn't mean it's all good in the rest of the industrialized world, but America is the worst when it comes to these metrics.

Let this sink in a little, watch the video, and ask yourself why we've come to collectively believe all this nonsense, that we need to keep working harder and harder, when this idea is directly opposite to what technological and scientific progress would entail? With all the things that make life easier, computers, robots and so on, why hasn't life become any easier for regular people, but instead has become harder? A lot has to do with the still widespread and completely irrational fear of socialism; Marx was right and he still is. So don't fear his ideas but study them. And don't fear that if sleepy Joe Biden wins the election (which isn't sure at all), America will be secretly ruled by the new leftists in the Democratic party; that fear is irrational for two reasons. For one the party's establishment still rule and they are just as corporatist as any Republican, and secondly, IF the "new left" would have something to say, you should welcome them with open arms ;-)

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