What Happened to the American Dream? with Matt Karp - Jacobin

I mean, the american dream was always a lie.

Perhaps in the 1950s maybe you could have had it as it was sold to you... as long as you were white, straight, and otherwise toeing the perfectly-normal-nothing-to-see-here line.

But beyond a very, very short period of privilege, it's always been bullshit.

The "American Dream" is about convincing people to work for low wages, go into massive debt, and buy things you cannot actually afford (property, education, vehicles, things to fill and fix your house, have a huge family), so that the wealthy can get rich of the slave labor and perpetual debt people incur. The true dream is to live within your means, unionize, create consumer protection & privacy laws, fight back and fairly tax the wealthy, corporations and religion.