The American Dream

I've read and re-read Fareed Zakaria's "How To Restore The American Dream."  As I read it my thoughts switched back and forth several times, and there remain serious questions about his solutions.  Basically, however, he has pinpointed a serious problem and one I know we need to address quickly.

Let me begin with a minor quibble with the idea that there is an "American" dream.  Much of what he describes as the dream is the product of the entertainment industry.  Its location in America is certainly so.  But truthfully, the dream is not solely American.  I believe every man and every woman dreams of a better life, physically, financially, and emotionally, a life in which their children can be safe, educated, and able to work toward their full potential.  That entertainment and politicians have set that dream in America is wrong on many fronts.  But that's a small disagreement, and doesn't actually change the points that Zakaria makes in the article.

This recession may not have been on the scale of "The Great Depression", but I believe it will affect our future in a much deeper, longer lasting way.  Technology has changed everything.

Jack Welch explained the process succinctly on CNBC last September. "Technology has changed the game in jobs," he said. "We had technology bumping around for years in the '80s and '90s, and [we were] trying to make it work. And now it's working ... You couple the habits [of efficiency] from a deep recession [with] an exponential increase in technology, and you're not going to see jobs for a long, long time." Welch gave as an example a company owned by the private-equity firm with which he is affiliated. In 2007 the business had 26,000 employees and generated $12 billion in revenue. It will return to those revenue numbers by 2013 but with only 14,000 employees. "Companies have learned to do more with less," Welch said.

In the early 1980s, I worked for Jack Welch, many (many) layers down, when he was CEO of General Electric.  General Electric Information Systems provided teleprocessing services to small and large industries and companies.  The US was then in a smaller recession, but GEIS prospered because we could provide teleprocessing services to allow companies to function without as many workers.  I could see the up and down side of it even then.  We did a good service, but as a result some good people lost jobs, or had their functions redesigned.  Truthfully, our services allowed many people to focus on aspects of their jobs that were usually more interesting and certainly more productive, but it was evident that over time fewer people would be needed to provide innovation and ideas.

Changing course slightly, between the previous paragraph and this one, Marrianna and I went to an 80th birthday celebration for a friend of Marrianna's.  There were lots of people, and I got into a conversation with another guy.  He is about my age, perhaps a couple of years younger, and is a retired investments manager.  Our conversation drifted through several topics, and then touched upon our current recession and what is going to happen as we come out of it.  We agreed that Jack Welch was correct that the number of jobs would be much less with implementation of technology.  Neither of us had an answer about what will provide jobs for people that need them.  He is convinced that the politicians and fiscal managers of our government will try to inflate ourselves out of the mountains of debt we are in.

Zakaria states the obvious, "There are solutions, but they are hard and involve painful changes — in companies, government programs and personal lifestyles."  He prescribes several parts of a solution: Shift from consumption to investment; training and education; Fiscal sanity; and Benchmark, Benchmark, Benchmark.  He may be correct, and certainly some portion of each of these need to happen.  But to me there just seems to be something more, something missing from his article.  I am not sure what it is, but I think it is something akin to trust.  Recent years have eroded the trust that is essential to an effective society, culture, or nation.  We don't trust one another, states don't trust the federal government, businesses depend on lobbyists to buy an edge over competitors, and nations seem to be trying to dance around one another because they don't have a sense that the other can be trusted.

Nothing will change, not in companies, government programs, or personal lifestyles until either a rock bottom is reached in which there is no other option or we decide to trust one another.  And, to me decide is key.  Somehow or another, we must simply make the decision to change ourselves and our systems of living with and governing ourselves.

Deciding will have to occur in many ways, some of which Zakaria has outlined.  It may sound defeatist, but I believe that the people of my nation, the United States of America, also need to understand that we are a part of a much larger world.  We have to accept that we are a part of the problem and must be a part of the solution.  If that means slower growth, then we must adapt.  We cannot continue to consume the ugly proportions of world resources we have for so long.  We have to decide that global warming is real and change accordingly.  Our allocation of funds to the military must change.  There's no excuse or need for our military to have so much of our limited resources. 

Another de- word that is necessary is demand.  This frightens me to say, but it's time that we demand better of ourselves and our government, and I'm not speaking of demanding more for ourselves and our personal pocketbooks.  We urgently need to demand more of our representatives.  And if we don't get it, then it's time to cause change.

I dream of an America that leads and is an example for others by the way it lives rather than by its entertainment exports.  My dream has us partners rather than competitors.  In my dream, we are secure but not dominant.  There remain problems, but they aren't considered insoluable.  Our education systems provide the skills required for graduates to achieve their highest dreams.  There's no barrier to upward mobilization by race, gender, or culture.  Our poorest are provided support and incentive without demoralizing or demeaning them.  And, in my dream, those who are most successful financially will contribute more to help others, either through their own giving or through a tax system.

And in my book, that is the American Dream.

Comments

[Clarissa Vincent]

- "Companies have learned to do more with less," Welch said.-
When society does this things improve.
Clarissa

[John Carter]

I agree, technology did change the game in jobs. Everything is getting automatized nowadays and this is lowering the number of available jobs. Unfortunately, many people have to readjust their career path and accommodate with what companies are asking for.