Comment by alan_cx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alan_cx | Hacker News Reader

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The reason people think the American Dream is as you state, is because the get rich quick people made it up to justify their exploitative wealth (I think slavery counts as exploitation), and need the common man to be educated and work hard for them, while spending all their earnings making the get rich quick people richer.

In short, the American Dream is a fraud. Capitalism means a huge chunk of people literally have to be poor, other wise costs rise, inflation goes mental and capitalism fails. Dunno if any one has noticed, but, er recession? People wanted the trappings of the American Dream, they couldn't afford it so they borrowed, couldn't pay it back and the whole thing came crashing down, and the only people bailed out were... guess who..... yeah, the get rich quick paddlers of the American Dream.

This is why we get boom and bust cycles. It happens when poor people trying to pretend to be rich begin to struggle to pay debt, and stop spending elsewhere. Its quite simple.

Not to slag off the US, the whole of western capitalism did this. The only difference is that the US lie of the American Dream is engrained in to American culture, so much that Americans, well, none Americans too, really believe it to be true. Its not, and never will be, because it actually makes no sense. You cant be right with out poor people to make it happen. Most of us will struggle for literally nothing more than mere survival, then die.

The real kick in the guts is that there is no known better system. Might be able to manage it better, but in the end, the masses will remain pretty poor, while the very few will be able to be filthy rich. I see no way out.

You need to read a book called The Millionnaire Next Door. The "American Dream" is very much a real thing and it rarely involves luck or exploitation. At the time of the book's writing, 80% of millionnaires in the US were first generation millionnaires and a large part of them first generation American immigrants.

> Capitalism means a huge chunk of people literally have to be poor, other wise costs rise, inflation goes mental and capitalism fails.

Of course "poor" is a relative term and the standard of living for the poor continues to rise as new innovations, efficiencies, and wealth enter the market. A poor person can walk into any supermarket and buy food that would have been considered and absurd and extravagant luxury 100 years ago. They can buy cell phones that let them communicate with anybody in the world instantly. But yes, there will always be someone who has less than somebody else, but what does it really matter if everyone's standard of living is rising?

If you liked Millionaire next door, let me recommend Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "Fooled by Randomness" for counterpoint.

How is it a counterpoint exactly?

Well, "Millionaire Next Door" uses examples of millionaires to provide some form of guidance (at least on some level) to non-millionaires on what it takes to actually become wealthy.

Though, I haven't read it, I would assume that "Fooled by Randomness" would explain the wealth of the individuals from "Millionare" as more to do with luck than anything else, and that it's not repeatable. And that fulfilling the "American Dream" has more to do with being lucky than with hard work.

Wow. No, I'm sorry, but TMND explains very clearly, backed by solid statistics, how people become rich, and it doesn't have anything to do with luck. In fact, the process of becoming a millionnaire is quite boring and unglamorous; invest prudently, cut expenses, don't buy new cars, have a modest mortgage, etc. Very few of the millionnaires interviewed in the book "got rich quick". The vast majority of millionnaires in the U.S. got there over a long period of time of living well below their means; long enough for luck to be completely factored out.

It's been awhile since I read Fooled by Randomness but I think Taleb's point was that TMND only looks at those who became rich, it doesn't look at those who didn't get rich following the same strategy.

I haven't read TMND so I can't say if that's true, but your post doesn't refute his point.

I see what you're getting at, but the key point to understand is that the authors of TMND were able to find a pattern among the millionnaires they interviewed. If these successes were primarily based on chance you wouldn't be able to discern a pattern of behavior because the paths they took to becoming millionaire would be wildly different. They weren't, though. There's the old saying "luck favors the prepared". These folks all probably had their ups and downs in life, but because of their frugality and fiscal responsibility they were able to smooth out the valleys and maximize the hills.

This is the line of reasoning Taleb criticizes. I haven't digested his criticism fully enough to fairly summarize it, but I think it's worth a look.

> Capitalism means a huge chunk of people literally have to be poor, other wise costs rise, inflation goes mental and capitalism fails.

So you are saying it is a zero-sum game? There is no rising tide lifting all boats?

I'm not sure if i believe this. I don't think the tide rises boats as high as people dream about, but to say that more people wouldn't be poor if we were in pre-capitalism days is ridiculous.

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