Forbes: What American Dream?
Fewer people in the U.S. believe they will ever achieve it.
More alarming may be the self-fulfilling prophecies that this skepticism cultivates. For the economy, people are more likely to hunker down and diminish any chance that consumer spending will restart the economy. For government, cynicism moves people away from the process, pushing political discourse further to the extremes and making government even more dysfunctional and less responsive that it already is.
None of this can be separated from rapid and all-encompassing technological change that is altering both our personal and institutional relationships. Inevitably, our institutions must change to keep up.
I am an optimist; in this case about America and its dream, and about those who will sort through and find solutions, the under-30 generation I call First Globals. What Winston Churchill said in 1947 is still true: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." It may take some time, but the generation that has grown up wired, connected and open to the world will make our institutions responsive again, and perhaps create new ones.
They will also keep the American Dream, and continue the path that defines it not as material, but as personal and spiritual fulfillment. Carpe diem. …
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