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Comment by refactor_master | Hacker News Reader

The American dream is that you can supposedly just “work very hard” and move up in society, which is demonstrably false compared to many other countries with similar levels of wealth.

Being of a somewhat established middle class background before moving to the US to “make it big” is not the American dream.

So in that sense it’s most definitely an illusion.

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The American Dream is about living a comfortable, prosperous (as in more than enough, not necessarily rich) life. The 1950s family with 2.2 children, a car, and a house of your own with a white picket fence. It's evolved since then, but the American Dream is not about moving classes, it's about a comfortable life. And from my observation, most people can achieve this, except in the coastal cities, where single family homes with a white picket fence either no longer exist or are expensive.

Honestly it's a bit ironic posting your arguments on this forum. I somewhat agree, but technology has taken people all around the world to the top 0.1% of wealth in America and does so every day

Yes, but only a small portion of people are working in tech, and those who are tend to be middle class white males anyway.

Whites are not overrepresented at most tech companies relative to their share of the population. Which major tech companies are over 60% white?

Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, and Microsoft all have a lower share of white workers than the general US population.

But how is that the American dream?

I myself work in tech and have nice academic credentials and all, and I come from from a “working class” background. I would never consider that the American dream though, because it was all paid through the welfare state of the country that I live in, and not because of any particular fortuitous circumstances.

That I use American-invented technology to generate revenue seems to be wholly besides the point of the American dream.

I have a similar background, but how is:

> I would never consider that the American dream though, because it was all paid through the welfare state of the country that I live in, and not because of any particular fortuitous circumstances.

Not the American dream? Education even if subsidized by the state (more so 30 years ago) still involves a lot of work, we still had to study hard while getting through our part time jobs to cover living expenses.

This is only true for native stock Americans. Immigrants do very well here, and it's far far easier to become rich in America than it is anywhere else. The American dream is as real as ever. Income mobility could be a bit easier in Australia, I guess, but I'd be hard pressed to think of many places where it was as possible to climb the social and income ladder. Of course, in America we don't have much of a safety net, so if you have ambitions to climb you gotta be careful not to fall.

> Of course, in America we don't have much of a safety net, so if you have ambitions to climb you gotta be careful not to fall.

These things aren't unrelated or coincidentally occurring in the same place though. The US permits kinds and degrees of exploitation in the name of building wealth that are not possible or acceptable in its "peer" nations.

Define exploitation.

Working very hard was never really necessary for moving up in the world. The mindset to make other people work for you goes a lot further.

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