The American Dream … by Martin Willett

Who sold you their dream? How much did you pay for it? I suggest you send it back for a refund. Faulty goods.

Many rednecks in the USA see a world government as the greatest threat to freedom in the world today. "Evil socialist atheists" trying to take over the good old US of A in the name of the United Nations. I often wonder what these people think they are defending. The right to keep automatic weapons in the home? The right to pollute the planet as they see fit, hell they can afford the gas! The right to be ignorant and loud while more than half the world lives in abject poverty. The right to worship Jesus. Whether the ruling class conspired to feed these people such ideas or not I am sure they are glad they have swallowed them.

Religion, fear of government, support of total freedom in a capitalist economy. Wind them up and watch them go. An army of self-armed lunatics who support the interests of the class which enslaves them. The ultimate irony is that nobody even pays them to do it! The rednecks saved up for their own guns through working for low pay and evading tax! One of the few things Lenin got right was in thinking that the only class that is naturally conscious of it's own interests is the ruling capitalist class. The proletariat never knows a thing, except what it is told to believe.

Are you as rich as you want to be?

Are you above the average for your society? Are you in the top 5% who really make big money? I guess most people will say no. Do you really think that letting the top 5% get away with it actually helps you, in any way? It is quite natural to harbor a dream that you might one day be in that elite, or your children might.

It is quite natural because those that are in that 5% want you to aspire to it. Aspire to it but not achieve it, that is for their children, not yours.

I remember a parable about two working class men and their sons watching a Rolls Royce drive past.

The American father says "Look son, one day you will buy one of those for your old dad."

The English father says "Look son, we'll take that off that bastard one day."

This story is usually told by people who want you to think like the American. Oh no. Wealth only has meaning in relative terms. The American father is looking forward to the envious looks of his neighbors far more than the comfortable ride. That is not an attitude to aspire to.

The American Dream is a fallacy. It is simply not possible for a planet of six billion people, growing faster than you can count, to behave in the way that Americans have come to expect. The Earth cannot take the strain. It is not possible for everybody to strive to attain whatever they fancy and the net result be an improved life for everybody.

The American Dream is an illusion. Freedom cannot be infinite. If one man can do whatever he wants the result is misery for others, although usually other people far away, unseen, in geographic or social space. The American Dream is that freedom can be infinite, you can attain whatever you want and nobody will have to pay a price for it. In the American Dream everybody can be richer than average and nobody lives in poverty unless they deserve it. It is nonsense. However it can appear to work for millions of people at a time, and most of the people you meet.

The universal richness of the world around you is an illusion. Most of the space in every town is given over to housing the rich, not because there are a lot of them but because they own more land and property. In most shops a large proportion of the space is given over to selling luxury goods. Why? Because there is more choice for the rich. The rich demand more choice and so in the shop I work in more than half the display space is given over to displaying wares to the top 10% of our customers. Looking along the range of products gives a strong illusion that most people buy expensive items, the reality is that in virtually every product range the single cheapest items outsell the most expensive 90% of the products on display. This truth is very far from self-evident; it took me several months to appreciate. In a town nearby there is a showroom selling Aston Martins, Ferraris and Rolls Royces, and another selling Fords, if you just drive or walk past you miss the reality that one sells cars considerably more often than the other.

The dream is that everybody can be rich, the reality is a lot more bitter for the vast majority of people. If you read this page you are rich, richer than the vast majority of people on this planet who cannot afford the technology that you are using.

The dream says that through hard work and effort everybody can achieve success, everybody can be rich and famous and happy. The reality is that the world is too small to slake the thirst for wealth of a single person who subscribes to this dream.

The dream of wealth is everywhere, not just America. Half the players in any lottery know they will win the jackpot. The dream of wealth is more pervasive in America than other countries because it has more to hide. There has to be a huge series of interlocking myths to account for the barbarity of American history. The reality is genocide, theft and wholesale corruption, using the earth as if it was the personal possession of a single person to be used and abused with no repercussions. America is the land of pioneers. Nobody has a more warped sense of reality than a pioneer. Pioneers have no sense of historical perspective or their part in the bigger picture. For a pioneer the long term is next year.

The old wives tale says that it is dangerous to wake a sleepwalker but the world cannot stand by any longer as America walks on asleep to the dangers of population growth, resource depletion and excess consumption against a backdrop of massive and growing inequality. It is time America awoke from her dream.

I look forward to the day when every person on the planet is properly fed, housed and clothed. When all work and wealth is fairly distributed. When no man has to work more than a third of the day unless he chooses, and his choice is not at the expense of another man's poverty. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.