The American Dream: Consumption or Contribution?

There’s a version of the American Dream that is characterized by the idea that one should work hard, buy a house, retire comfortably, and leave an inheritance for your kids. This is fundamentally a consumerist perspective. It is predicated on the belief that a life worth living is the result of acquiring things—more money, more possessions, more comfort. It asserts that the purpose of work is to generate material wealth. But it misses the point: material wealth is a (hopeful, possible) by-product of a worthy life, but it is not the goal of a worthy life.

Once we set our dream to material wealth, there is no logical stopping point. There is only more, because someone else always has more. Possessions do give us a burst of happiness, but it wears off fairly quickly and leaves us on a quest for another hit from another new thing. This is referred to as the hedonic treadmill. If I buy a new car, it makes me happy for a while, but eventually I become accustomed to the car and it just fades into the background of my life, and the burst of happiness wears off. Or worse, having a new car becomes the baseline for my happiness, and so now I have to get a new car more frequently just to maintain my happiness, which means I have to work even harder, trapped by my expectations of wealth. As the hit of happiness wears off, I have to go off looking for the next thing that will give me happiness, much like someone running on a treadmill - you never get there because there is no there to get to - the belt just keeps going around.

I don’t think the American Dream was ever really about consumption. Consumption is an individual thing. Americans are often described as individualists, and we are, but we have always been individualists who like to do things together. Alexis de Tocqueville, a French aristocrat, toured the United States in the 1830s and was struck by how Americans of every class and gender were involved in organizations that were meant to help support and elevate themselves and society. They participated in churches, clubs, mutual aid societies, and more with the goal of making a contribution. This was a different way of being than he observed in Europe. I would argue that the traditional societies of Europe and elsewhere prevented the majority of individuals from participating in political and economic life. The result was intergenerational stagnation and poverty. The promise of America wasn’t just the possibility of material wealth, but the promise of extended participation in society, and the ability to contribute.

In highly stratified countries where the government is run by elites with the purpose of maintaining elites’ status, when people see a fancy car drive past, they do not look on with admiration. Instead, they rightly judge that the person driving the car has her/his wealth as a result of her/his political power, and the ability to exclude others from participation. While there is a small share of the wealthy population in America who have their wealth as a result of intergenerational accumulation, that is not the vast majority of those we think of as the “1%”. The vast majority of the 1% are doctors, lawyers, and other professionals. Their access to those professions may be partially the result of intergenerational cultural inheritances, but getting there still requires exceptional individual effort. And further, access to those professions is open to anyone. The door is open - the challenge is knowing where the door is. I believe this deeply, and have committed the second half of my working life to dragging kids through that door. We can argue about social mobility, but the evidence of immigration and emigration patterns over the centuries proves that people have looked at America as a place where they could break free of the restrictions of their place of birth and become something. And by becoming something, I mean becoming a person who makes a difference.

In morality tales, rich people become rich by exploiting and stealing. While this certainly happens, it is not the way the vast majority of people become wealthy in the United States. Most people become rich in the United States by serving others in some way, shape, or form. We do not begrudge the orthopedic surgeon who replaces our knees and hips the high six-figure salary s/he takes home. If you do, I suggest you endure the 13 years of high-pressure schooling and training that the field requires, as well as the relentless risk of losing one’s license and having all of that go for not if one makes a mistake, and then you can have the right to complain. Lawyers generally make a very good income. Americans love to hate on lawyers, but lawyers are generally not free-floating entities. They represent the interests of others. We may not like the others they represent, but by definition, the profession is one of service. Lawyers do not make money unless someone believes they are creating value through their service. Business owners and professional managers make their money by serving their customers. For a business to make money, someone has to want what the business is selling. Business is a relentless competition, regardless of what it might feel like. One only need to look at the composition of the Dow Jones or the S&P 500 over the last 50 years to see the churn as seemingly invulnerable firms that are near-monopolies lose to upstarts. My point is wealth is a product of service. If you do not serve, if you do not contribute, it is rare that you will accumulate wealth.

It is possible to provide an important service and not be paid especially well - not poor, but certainly not 1%. I’d like to think what I do is important, and that I make a significant contribution. One does not become an Army officer and then a professor if one is in pursuit of material wealth. The rewards of such professions are often in the doing of the profession itself; they are intrinsic. When I see my students succeed, I know I have made a contribution. I know what I do matters. If you work, you serve. It’s a matter of framing your work as service and believing in what you serve.

There is no culture anywhere that says, you know, as long as I’m living a spiritual life, it’s ok if I watch my kids starve (set aside Marx and Rousseau who lived that life). We have a responsibility to ourselves and to society to make sure that we can support ourselves and our children, if we have them. The basic food, shelter, security of Maslow’s Hierarchy applies. That is universal and not special to America. The addiction to wealth and consumerism has a unique expression in America, but it is not especially American. Even the desire to contribute is universal. Adam Smith, writing in Scotland in the 1750s said, “Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love.” What is the thing which is the proper object of love? It is the thing that contributes to the well-being of others. This is perhaps the single most important aspect of living a worthy life - to make a difference. To know you are prevented from fully self-actualizing because of where and when you live is a terrible thing, and what still drives people to come to America, as imperfect as it is.

If meaning were simply derived from consumption, imagine a life where you received payments from the government at the income level you desire for doing nothing. A check would arrive in the mail every month and no one would expect anything from you. You could laze on the beach or drink beer and watch TV all day. This might be fun for a period of time, but would provide no purpose to your life. No one would miss you if you died because you contributed nothing, you were just a sponge sucking off of society. We need to contribute to find purpose to find meaning. Denying someone the right to contribute is a terrible thing.

What was, and to some degree still is, unique about America, is the ability to become a person who contributes. In the 17th and 18th centuries, America was unique in its opportunity. It is less unique now, but that opportunity is still there to be grasped. The American Dream that I believe in is not one that focuses on consumption, but on contribution. The American Dream is to live a worthy life: to become someone who matters, someone who is lovely, someone who makes a difference.