The American Foundations

If prosperity, belonging, and purpose can be pursued anywhere in the world, what makes the American Dream uniquely American?

It is a fair question.

People build families in every country. They form communities in every culture. They find meaning through faith, service, work, and relationships all over the world.

Many countries today enjoy high standards of living, democratic institutions, and legal protections that would have been unimaginable just a few decades ago.

America didn’t invent the desire for a richer and fuller life. Human beings have always desired that. And many nations enable innovation in their own way.

That said, there are certain enablers that have been particularly important to the American experience. The uniqueness lies in the extent to which these ideas have defined American identity and shaped its culture.

The foundations of the American Dream are dignity of labor, freedom, and equal opportunity. Together they create an environment in which people are able to fully pursue prosperity, belonging, and purpose.

Dignity of Labor

“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

In many societies throughout history, occupations were closely tied to social status. Certain professions carried prestige while others carried stigma. Advancement was often limited by class and tradition.

The American tradition challenged this idea. Honest work was considered worthy of respect.

A few years ago, I booked an Uber to the Austin airport. The driver picked me up, and after I settled in, we struck up a conversation. It turns out that he was a chef by profession and had been recently laid off.

He was now thinking of starting his own food services business. He hoped that his professional relationships would give him a head start so he could cater to executive events and conferences. If that didn’t work out, he had an idea to set up a food truck with a unique menu.

Like many others, he was driving for Uber in the interim so he could make enough money to keep paying the bills. I didn’t think any less of him. In fact, little did I know at the time that soon I would be experiencing a similar journey of reinvention myself. From a high-level corporate job to driving a taxi – America has long embraced dignity of labor.

Starting from childhood and right through college, honest work in its many forms has been earnestly promoted and instilled in every American mind. This foundation has been a vital enabler of the much-vaunted social mobility construct. We tend to not judge or discriminate.

It also helps explain why entrepreneurship occupies such an important place in the American imagination. We admire people who build things, create opportunities, solve problems, and take risks. The successful entrepreneur is celebrated not merely because they became wealthy, but because they transformed an idea into something valuable for others, and in doing so, uplifted countless others.

While some stories receive more attention, such as Michael Dell starting his business from his dorm room, or Elon Musk betting his last penny on a rocket launch, there are countless others.

We can find them when we talk to people around us. In just the past 2 years I have come across several. For example, I came across a man who made a side income cleaning recycling and garbage bins. He then scaled it up into a franchise operation serving many neighborhoods every week.  The house cleaner who we hired to clean our home when we moved to Texas, soon started a company and now has many house cleaners (or future business owners) working for her.

These may not be the entrepreneurs whose stories made the headlines, but they embody the same spirit. They took a risk, created value for others, and lifted up many others along with them.

The path is uncertain, and indeed many stumble, but what matters is that America makes the pursuit of the dream available to everyone. And what’s unique is that there is dignity in every step to success.

Freedom

“Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.” – Frederick Douglass

The nation was founded upon a radical proposition: that ordinary people should be free to determine the course of their own lives.

The American Dream is therefore not merely an economic concept. It is a cultural and philosophical one.

Throughout history, most people had little control over the course of their lives⁷. They were born into a social class, inherited a profession, followed the religion of their rulers, and lived within boundaries they could not easily cross. Entire groups of people could find themselves permanently excluded from advancement regardless of their talent or ambition.

America offered something different.

It embraced the idea that individuals should be free to choose their own path and have the right to express and disagree with each other. Society and government do not define the limits of our dreams and ambitions.

One evidence of this is seen in the tremendous independence instilled in children. They are free to choose and decide, but they must also accept the results of their actions. And right through adulthood, this freedom is rooted in a distinctive American understanding of our rights, and on the flip side, our responsibilities. It’s our firm belief that our rights are not gifts granted by external powers or governments, but instead they are inherent to our humanity. The American tradition holds that governments exist not to create rights but to protect them.

Whether one approaches this idea from a religious perspective or a philosophical one, its impact on American culture has been profound. We tend to see ourselves as active participants rather than spectators.

This mindset explains many aspects of American life. We display a healthy skepticism toward concentrated power. We place a higher value on self-reliance and personal responsibility. We tend to prefer having the freedom to make our own choices and accept the risk that comes with those choices.

At the same time, freedom can seem intimidating at some level. It can be unnerving to not have a guiding hand showing the way. For many like me coming from controlled societies with well defined paths, it seemed frightening and exhilarating at the same time. Eventually we realize that the only real backstop we ever had is our own initiative. That is why we remember and hail the mavericks in every society who assumed risks (many have no other choice) and built something from nothing, as my parents did. Societies thrive because of them.

Freedom does not guarantee success. It simply gives us the opportunity to pursue it vigorously.

Equal Opportunity

“This is essentially a people’s contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.” – Abraham Lincoln, 4 July, 1861

The American promise was not that everyone would achieve the same outcome, but that everyone would stand equal in the freedom to pursue their goals.

Equal opportunity does not imply that every individual begins life with the same advantages. It means that society aspires to provide a common set of rules, broad access to opportunity, and freedom for individuals to improve their circumstances regardless of where they begin.

This principle is why more than half of the people in any one generation⁸, especially in the bottom quintile of economic status, rise to a higher social and economic status by the next generation.

And almost a tenth would make it to the top tier of prosperity.

In fact, a study in 2023 found that 93% of children¹⁰ who grew up in the bottom income quintile end up with higher inflation-adjusted household incomes than their parents.

America has fought hard for this to happen through sacrifice of blood and anti-discrimination laws that opened up opportunities and access to everyone.

However, we naturally differ in talent, ambition, economic status, and family circumstances.

For example, for those in households with both parents, the chance of upward economic mobility is dramatically improved, as it is for those completing high school.

We have developed a public school system to enable free education. Since local property taxes fund public schools, it has given rise to natural challenges of schooling access being limited to where people live and pay taxes.

The unintended consequence is that it is unfortunately shutting down opportunities for talented and deserving children rather than opening more doors.

This is now being corrected by School Choice frameworks¹¹ that are removing at least the financial and geographical barriers to education.

Corporations are also expanding access by inviting applications from more schools and colleges that they had historically, thus automatically expanding diversity of thought and backgrounds in their workplaces without having to set discriminatory quotas.

Equal opportunity establishes a framework of possibility and fairness.

It is often confused with providing equal outcomes to everyone or eliminating income inequality, an outdated metric that unfortunately is still commonly in use¹².

However, outcomes can never be guaranteed, nor can wealth creation be evenly distributed in a free society unless the resources are controlled centrally, a concept that has failed spectacularly wherever it has been tried¹³.

I’ll just leave it at this: what is protected and being constantly expanded is the right to try, opportunities to pursue, and improve our conditions in absolute, not relative, terms.

The Three Foundations of the American Dream

The American Dream depends upon these foundations of freedom, equal opportunity, and dignity of labor.

Take away these foundations and the promise of the Dream is replaced by the ill-fated promise of provision. It simply becomes a way for others, including the government, to bestow upon us a life they think is right for us, ultimately leading to control, tyranny, and discrimination.

As freedom expands globally, many other countries are naturally evolving to adopt the foundations of freedom, equal opportunity, and dignity of labor.

America, however, remains one of the clearest and most established examples of these principles in practice.

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