By Chris Rabb
Guest Contributor
Colorlines.com
Something’s gone horribly wrong economically in this country, so highly regarded across the globe for its spirit of enterprise and golden opportunity. And while it’s true that from the greatest challenges arise the greatest opportunities, it is also true that things are getting objectively worse for already struggling communities, who for generations have known unemployment and poverty as norms.
Still, even though fewer Americans than ever before are likely to achieve the promise of upward mobility for themselves or their kids, Americas cling to the mythology of meritocracy—or, as comic provocateur George Carlin once quipped, an American Dream that one needs to be asleep to believe in. Entrepreneurship is the most celebrated version of that dream.
“From our first days as a nation, we have put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America’s wealth and prosperity,” Obama declared as the opening premise of his deficit-reduction plan in April. “More than citizens of any other country, we are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people.”
If you work hard enough, have a good enough idea and a positive attitude, you have the recipe for success—or so the narrative of American wealth goes.
It’s simply not true.
Read more here at Colorlines.com.
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