12: Theorizing the American Dream

Capital can move anywhere it wants in the world, but labor is increasingly immobilized. Chomsky quotes Allan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, who in 1997 made the following testimony:

Basically, Greenspan was saying that the success of the economy depends upon the insecurity of the worker. As Chomsky noted, keeping workers insecure is a way to control them. When you speak out against the exploitation of labor in the U.S. you are often called “anti-American.” Only a totalitarian society would use that term to describe activists who are trying to improve the social and economic conditions of workers, and of the poor. In the 1950s and 1960s the U.S., Americans saw the greatest period of economic growth in its history. So, yes, the idea of the American Dream—owning a house, paid vacations, perhaps affording a cottage near a lake—was true to a certain extent during this period of capitalist growth, but in the 1970s the myth of the American Dream persisted even though the objective conditions were no longer there to support it. Public schools, which Chomsky describes as the “jewels of American society” are disappearing, as most funds now in universities come from tuition and not from the state— and this is also true of so-called public universities. We have in the world of business what Chomsky referred to as “regulatory capture” where the businesses that are being regulated have control over the regulators. In other words, regulating agencies become dominated by the industries they were charged with regulating. But the biggest complaint about the erosion of the American Dream is the crippling costs of medical insurance, and even a good insurance policy can lead you into bankruptcy if you have a serious illness.