Yeah, absolutely. And to her follow-up question about whether the American Dream and capitalism aren’t intertwined:
No, actually not. In fact, the American Dream and capitalism are actually two very opposing concepts.
In free-market capitalism (and anything that gets close to it), having capital increases your chances to gain more capital. It’s an inherently unstable system that favours people having money over people not having money.
The American Dream on the other hand says “if you work hard enough, you will become rich”. That’s literally opposing the core capitalist concept, because it means “Even if you don’t start out with money and connections, just working hard will make you successful”.
Capitalism is a system where hard work alone (and it really doesn’t matter how hard the work is) will not let you break out of your social caste, because you are up against people who work just as hard but have money, education and connections, and you can’t compete against that, even if you work 24h a day.
The American Dream is not capitalistic, because it doesn’t include the concept of capital at all.
None, that is true. But the american dream is nothing but a lie to keep the drones in line.
But many systems (e.g. the New Deal) can make it very likely that hard work gets you at least decently well off. Neoliberalism and other more extreme forms of capitalism don’t do even that.
Goddamn that man is well spoken.
Yeah, absolutely. And to her follow-up question about whether the American Dream and capitalism aren’t intertwined:
No, actually not. In fact, the American Dream and capitalism are actually two very opposing concepts.
In free-market capitalism (and anything that gets close to it), having capital increases your chances to gain more capital. It’s an inherently unstable system that favours people having money over people not having money.
The American Dream on the other hand says “if you work hard enough, you will become rich”. That’s literally opposing the core capitalist concept, because it means “Even if you don’t start out with money and connections, just working hard will make you successful”.
Capitalism is a system where hard work alone (and it really doesn’t matter how hard the work is) will not let you break out of your social caste, because you are up against people who work just as hard but have money, education and connections, and you can’t compete against that, even if you work 24h a day.
The American Dream is not capitalistic, because it doesn’t include the concept of capital at all.
What kind of system guarantees becoming rich from hard work? I don’t know of any.
None, that is true. But the american dream is nothing but a lie to keep the drones in line.
But many systems (e.g. the New Deal) can make it very likely that hard work gets you at least decently well off. Neoliberalism and other more extreme forms of capitalism don’t do even that.