Individualism

Individualism cannot be maintained as the foundation of a society if it looks to only legalistic justice based upon contracts, property, and political equality. Such legalistic safeguards are themselves not enough. In our individualism we have long since abandoned the laissez faire of the 18th Century-the notion that it is "everyman for himself and the devil take the hindmost." We abandoned that when we adopted the ideal of equality of opportunity-the fair chance of Abraham Lincoln. We have confirmed its abandonment in terms of legislation, of social and economic justice,-in part because we have learned that it is the hindmost who throws the bricks at our social edifice, in part because we have learned that the foremost are not always the best nor the hindmost the worst-and in part because we have learned that social injustice is the destruction of justice itself. We have learned that the impulse of production can only be maintained at a high pitch if there is a fair division of the product. We have also learned that fair division can only be obtained by certain restrictions on the strong and the dominant. We have indeed gone even further in the 20th Century with the embracement of the necessity of a greater and broader sense of service and responsibility to others as a part of individualism. Whatever may be the case with regard to Old World Individualism (and we have given more back to Europe than we have received from her) the truth that is important for us to grasp today is that there is a world of difference between the principles and spirit of Old World individualism and that which we have developed in our country.

We have, in fact, a special social system of our own. We have made it ourselves from materials brought in revolt from conditions in Europe. We have lived it; we constantly improve it; we have seldom tried to define it. It abhors autocracy and does not argue with it, but fights it. It is not capitalism, or socialism, or syndicalism, not a cross breed of them. Like most Americans, I refuse to be damned by anybody's world-classification of it, such as "capitalism," "plutocracy," "proletariat" or "middle class," or any other, or to any kind of compartment that is based on the assumption of some group dominating somebody else.

For a lot of people "The American Dream" is connected to becoming wealthy and the ability to achieve everything if one only works hard enough for it (From rags to riches). For others it is much more and is beyond materialism. For them it is the dream of living a simple, happy and fulfilling life and the most important features being faith and equality. "The American Dream" also is about liberty and America being the country of unlimited opportunities. Concluded one could say "the American Dream" is the belief of the US-American Society that each individual can, through hard working and strength of mind, achieve everything.