The American Dream is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

When I moved to this country almost 20 years ago, I fell in love with the American Dream. I fell in love with it so much that I’ve devoted my life to “selling” the American Dream—to paraphrase Rich DeVos’ great speech “Selling America” (which he delivered throughout the 1960s)—by founding a think tank dedicated to inspiring more hope in this incredible cultural ethos.

The founding father of the American Dream, James Truslow Adams, defined this concept 100 years ago in The Epic of America (1931):

[The American Dream] is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man and woman, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement . . . . It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.

Towards the end of the great “Selling America” speech, DeVos quotes Thomas Wolfe’s similar theme:

So, then, to every man his chance, to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining golden opportunity, to every man, the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him—this, seeker, is the promise of America.

The promise of the American Dream is also at the core of the United States’ founding document, the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

The unique ethos of the American Dream is a treasure that should be cherished. Two economists and Nobel laureates, Joel Mokyr and Edmund Phelps, recognized the importance of culture for human progress and mass flourishing, especially in Europe from 1400 to 1800. New cultural attitudes and institutions ushered in by the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution led to greater freedom, innovation, and paths to human flourishing. I would argue that no place has done a better job of fostering and embodying those cultural environments than the United States, where the American Dream has been woven into the social fabric of a country.

Continue reading at The Believe! Journal.