The American Dream Is Alive. But You May Need Capital to Enter.
America is creating more millionaires. The uncomfortable question is whether work alone still provides a credible path to wealth.
There is something wonderfully American about declaring the American Dream alive because the country is producing more millionaires.
And, to be fair, there is something important in the argument.
The Wall Street Journal has just published a fascinating piece under the deliberately optimistic headline “The American Dream Is Alive. And It’s Minting Millionaires.”
https://www.wsj.com/business/entrepreneurship/the-american-dream-is-alive-and-its-minting-millionaires-3903775b
Its central point deserves attention because it challenges the increasingly fashionable idea that American wealth belongs exclusively to a tiny collection of Wall Street financiers, Silicon Valley founders and inherited fortunes.
America has an enormous universe of private business owners.
Many are not celebrities.
They own construction companies, medical practices, restaurants, logistics businesses, dealerships, professional firms, small manufacturers and thousands of other businesses that rarely appear on CNBC.
That matters.
But perhaps the WSJ is right for a reason that creates a much more uncomfortable question.
America may still be extraordinarily good at creating millionaires.
The question is increasingly:
Who gets to become one?
The American Dream Has Not Disappeared. It Has Changed Its Balance Sheet.
For much of the twentieth century, the American economic bargain was relatively easy to understand.
Work.
Earn more.
Buy a house.
Accumulate savings.
Build a pension.
Perhaps start a business.
Pass something to your children.
It was never universally accessible, and nostalgia often exaggerates how egalitarian that system really was.
But there was an important economic mechanism underneath it:
labour income could gradually be converted into ownership.
That distinction matters enormously.
Because wealth is not income.
Income pays your electricity bill.