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 are unique to America. The uniqueness lies in the extent to which these ideas define its identity and shape its culture.
The foundations of the American dream are freedom, equal opportunity, and dignity of labor. Together they create an environment in which people are able to 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 and banked on his professional relationships so that 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.
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 this journey of reinvention myself. From a high-level corporate job to driving a taxi – America has long embraced dignity of labor.
This third foundation has been a vital enabler of the much-vaunted social mobility construct. We tend to not judge or discriminate. Because starting from childhood, honest work in its many forms has been earnestly promoted.
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.
We notice this aspirational aspect of our culture almost immediately. A person who begins by washing dishes may eventually own a restaurant. A tradesperson may build a thriving company. Each would employ many more. The path is uncertain, but it is not predetermined. The pursuit of the dream matters, and there is dignity in every step that accompanies it.
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 lives. 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.
This freedom is rooted in a distinctive American understanding of our rights. It’s the firm belief that our rights are not gifts granted by governments, but instead they are inherent to our humanity. 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 of us coming from controlled societies, it seems frightening and exhilarating at the same time.
Freedom does not guarantee success. It simply gives us the opportunity to pursue it.
Equal Opportunity
“This is essentially a People’s contest… 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—and to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.” – Abraham Lincoln
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 generation, 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. America has fought hard for this to happen through the 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. And even as we have developed a public school system to enable free education, it has itself given rise to natural challenges of being limited to where people live and pay taxes. Most states have now furthered these opportunities through programs such as school choice. Corporations are also expanding access by inviting applications from more schools and colleges that they had historically, thus naturally expanding diversity of thought and backgrounds.
Equal opportunity establishes a framework of possibility and fairness.
It is often confused with providing equal outcomes to everyone or eliminating income inequality. However, outcomes can never be guaranteed, nor can wealth creation be evenly distributed in a free society. That said, those are complicated policy debates influenced strongly by political ideologies which this book won’t try to address. 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 American Dream depends upon these principles of freedom, equal opportunity, and dignity of labor.
Without them, 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 tyranny and discrimination.
As freedom and opportunity expand globally, many other cultures are naturally evolving to the foundations of freedom, equal opportunity, and dignity of labor.
America however remains the clearest and most established example of these principles in practice.
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