AMERICAN DREAM AND ITS IMPACT ON SOCIETY

The Best Conceptual Toolkit to Understand the American Dream and Its Impact on Society

Karl Marx - The Best Conceptual Toolkit to Understand the “American Dream” and Its Impact on Society

Introduction

Capitalism and its values revolve around material possessions and their acquisition. In this society, the poor man strives to be rich, and a powerless man to gain power. Many of these people however don't have access to these privileges, and so to be one of the few taking the limited seats of wealth and power they compete, most often times against each other. Such environments are not only often times promote conflict but confrontation as well, and many times the winners of these altercations are relishing in "The American Dream" While capitalism promotes the belief that this dream is achievable, it is more often than not, a literal dream, and leaves its pursuers poor, and weak (Marx et al, 2008). This keeps the working class powerless, and pacified to propagate capitalistic values.

Discussion

What I gathered from reading from Karl Marx is mainly that value is determined by the labor put into it, and the rarity of the object. Humans make something valuable or not based on the perceived effort put into it, not necessarily the actual effort. Regarding the “magnitudes of value” mentioned in the article, I found that rarity is a huge factor in defining something as “valuable”. For example, we value an ounce of gold so much more than a pound of iron, even though you can do more with iron.

Marx states, “The determination of the magnitude of value by labor-time is therefore a secret hidden under the apparent movements in the relative values of commodities”. In short, if the 'thing' makes life easier for people, it is worth more to them. Its worth can completely disregard the labor-time or quantity of the object, in order for its convenience to namely be the 'value'. People will spend more on a labor intensive item than an easier to make item. For example, people will pay $20 for a knit wool sweater and $3 on a can opener, without thinking about the resources being used (Marx et al, 2008).

Clean cut examples of this are cases in such societies where people do not have the chance to advance but have the chance to succeed. A strange position that seems to contradict a culture that's "Dream" is to be powerful and wealthy at the top of the ladder. Many people in these positions only perceive themselves to be succeeding but in actuality, they are failing at achieving what they most desire, and not knowing. "Success" and "Advancement" have attempted to be separated in this scenario, and keep the working class placated to ensure the wealthy upper class has little or no threat of takeover, or integration (Bloom & Hobby, 2009). Materialism often plays a large role in keeping this cycle in progress, as not having material goods, and money, even if only in small amounts and increments means ...