Tamara Lemmon

Dr. Barry
ENGL 3230
17 October 2013
The American Dream
The middle class is the heart, the lifeblood, the energy source of a free,
industrial economy, i.e., of capitalism; it did not and cannot exist under any other
system; it is the product of upward mobility, incompatible with frozen social castes,
says Ayn Rand, champion of laissez faire capitalism and founder of objectivism
(Dead End). Ayn Rand has always been an economic hero of mine, and while my
belief in the possibility of attaining upward mobility through the pursuit of the
American Dream has not wavered, the discussions and readings of the semester
thus far have brought the feasibility of class-jumping for the average American into
rather startling perspective. It isnt that middle class Americans cannot become
upper class Americans; it is simply that the average middle class American likely
cannot and will not.
To understand why the composition, structure, and fluidity of the middle class
are changing, we must first understand how the middle class began. The middle
class, as we almost intuitively understand it through conventional reference, is a
relatively new concept. Many historians believe that the middle class began in Italy
during the Renaissance with the rise of skilled tradesmen and artisans from poorer
classes to a level of prominence and wealth. This reality soon spread throughout
Europe and ultimately to the New World. The American middle class, however,

burgeoned and solidified at the close of World War II. Following the second global
conflict, the western world faced a vacuum: a vacuum of men, of durable goods, of
housing, and of crops. Americas able-bodied work force rushed to fill this gap.
Simultaneously, technology advanced rapidly throughout the early and midtwentieth century. Factories sprung up across the country to manufacture
everything from cars to radios to farming equipment. Factory jobs often paid well
and demanded very little, if any, formal training and education. The worldwide need
for the goods America was producing, and the still inadequate American labor force,
created a cycle of demand for the common laborer. As with all commodities on an
open market, the human commodity is affected by changing market conditions. The
human commodity through the middle decades of the 1900s experienced a cycle of
long demand and short supply. This demand created increased wages and the
median incomes of the lowest four sections of American society grew by greater
than 100% in the decades immediately succeeding WWII (Steingart 196). A key
factor to note is that in this economic environment, it was not necessary to be
exceptional in order to achieve success. It was only necessary to be average. This
would soon change.
As transportation technology continued to advance, it became possible to
outsource the production of durable goods beyond the borders of the United States.
This opportunity radically altered the landscape of American business. Unions
suddenly faced competition, not from de-unionization, but from sweat shop workers
in the third world. No longer were companies forced to decide between hiring union
workers (and paying higher wages) or non-union workers (and facing potential
instability and disruptions to the workforce.) Now, they could choose between
paying higher wages to Americans or drastically lower wages to workers overseas

(Chapman 185).For many companies, especially manufacturing firms, the

temptation of cheap foreign labor was simply too alluring to resist. As a result of this
globalization, the good jobs in todays economy are increasingly less likely to be
found on an assembly line that is accessible to the average American, and are
instead located in progressive companies that require a certain level of education
and training from their prospective employees. As Barbara Ehrenreich noted, the
most dynamic enterprises of recent years have been the dot-coms and other hi-tech
companies (117). These companies can provide excellent out-of-the-box working
conditions and competitive salaries, but the barrier to entry is often considerable.
These migrations and transitions of labor have precipitated a dramatic evolution in
the core values of the American Dream. Hard work, honesty, and diligence have
ceased to encapsulate the required formula to climb the social ladder; now it seems,
exceptional talent, dogged determination, higher education, and/or an above
average capacity for innovation must accompany these core values in order for
class jumping to occur.
The anecdotal evidence seems to support such a conclusion. My mother-inlaw began her career as a secretary at an insurance agency in Boise, Idaho in the
1960s. She has worked for that same company for over 40 years and is now a
member of middle management making better than six figures annually with
generous benefits. But these stories, once the very crux of the American Dream,
are becoming less and less common. The common worker rarely stays with a single
company for a lifetime of employment and, perhaps due to the legions of
management candidates with MBAs looking for work, many businesses now appear
to infrequently endorse the practice of promoting from within. So who are the class
jumpers of the modern era? Increasingly they appear to be individuals with

remarkable talent, extraordinary capabilities, and a little bit of luck. Certainly

professional athletes, movie stars, and musicians fall into this category. They have
loads of natural talent and, in most cases, have worked hard and beaten out
thousands of others to find their way to financial success. Another example is the
innovators of the technology industries: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg.
These individuals had not only unique ideas, but the intelligence and the drive to
carry them to fruitioncertainly traits that place them outside the circle of most
everyday working humans. Entrepreneurs in every field fall into this same category
to a greater or lesser degree. They are usually individuals with driving ambition, a
somewhat unique idea or innovation, and a fairly large tolerance for risk. For every
single entrepreneur that successfully navigates a course to the upper class,
thousands fail and remain within the middle and lower classes.
In the same way, however, that we do not tell our children that the chances
of them growing up to be the next LeBraun James, or Michael Phelps, or Tom Cruise
are next to nothing, we do not tell them that the chances of them rising from the
middle or lower class to be a member of the rich are perhaps only slightly better.
And maybe we dont need to. The American Dream is intended to be a dream that is
wrapped in struggle. It always has been. The struggles that shrouded this dream
from the grasp of our immigrant ancestors were different than those that obscure
the dream today. But, likely, no one set of circumstances is better or worse than the
other. The citizens who achieved the American Dream in the 1800s were those who
were healthy enough to survive sickness and an arduous journey west. Those who
climbed the social ladder in the 1900s were those who were lucky enough to survive
two world wars and the extreme poverty of the Great Depression. Social ladder
climbers in this century are those who have been blessed with above average

intelligence, skill, or other abilities. Statistics indicate that the middle class is
shrinking today (Morello). No doubt it will expand again tomorrow. Society is
cyclical. One thing, however, remains the same: In a society of free men, the best
and the brightest will always find a way to climb to the top, and while it is important
that we examine our political and social structures periodically, it is also important
that we do not seek to create equality at the expense of excellence. After all,
ancient Chinese fortune cookie say, Those who say it cannot be done should not
interrupt the ones doing it.

Works Cited
Chapman, Steve. The Middle Class Is Better Off than in Past Decades. The Middle
Class: Opposing

Viewpoints. ed. David Haugen, Susan Musser, and Vickey

Kalambakal. Detroit: Greenhaven

Press, 2010. 181-185. Print.

Ehrenreich, Barbara. This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation. New
York: Metropolitan Books, 2009. Print.
Morello, Carol. Census: Middle class shrinks to an all-time low. The Washington
Post. 12 Sept. 2012.

Print.

Steingart, Gabor. Globalization is Devastating the Middle Class. The Middle Class:
Opposing

Viewpoints. ed. David Haugen, Susan Musser, and Vickey Kalambakal.

Detroit: Greenhaven

Press, 2010. 196-204. Print.

The Dead End: The Ayn Rand Letter. Ayn Rand Lexicon. Ayn Rand Institute. 2013.
Web. 17 Oct. 2013.