Myth of Shared Prosperity in America

Re “The American Dream vs. the American System,” Commentary, April 15:

Benjamin Schwarz claims that the American dream of shared prosperity never really existed. Yet the American dream of a generation ago was not about financial equality but about stability and realized expectations. Most members of the middle class (blue and white collars) worked in manufacturing industries, usually for the same employer throughout their working years. They expected and realized stable income, benefits and retirement. Further, they lived within their means.

Today we expect to change employers and careers often. We cannot anticipate our income or expenses--such as purchasing our own health insurance--and we live in a constant state of anxiety. As two-thirds of our service-oriented economy depends on consumers, we have to go shopping, whether we need the items or not, to prevent the collapse of the economy.

Last, we bemoan the quality, not the quantity, of the widening gap between rich and poor. The richest Americans used to be entrepreneurs and innovators-- risk-takers who created jobs and expanded the economy. Since the mid ‘80s, the richest Americans have been brokers, bankers, attorneys and CEOs who reigned over mergers and buyouts. Their personal wealth has never been in jeopardy while they were handsomely rewarded for actions that cost millions their stable, good-paying jobs.

HANNA HILL

Irvine

* You could have saved some ink with Schwarz’s polemic on the American dream as follows: “Rich Americans make too much; let’s redistribute it to the rest of us.” Unfortunately Schwarz didn’t have the courage to make his point directly, choosing instead to hide behind oblique words like “the promise of American life will be realized only by the most fundamental changes in our political economy.”

Marx died over 100 years ago and his handiwork died in places like the Soviet Union 10 years ago. But some people never get it.

KEN ARTINGSTALL

La Canada

* In his less-than-convincing obituary on the capitalistic system, Schwarz says that “we must recognize that an economic system that has never given us what we profess to want will never fulfill that promise.” Is that what the Chinese are currently asking themselves? What American capitalism offers, Mr. Schwarz, is an opportunity, not a promise. An opportunity to start your own business and by risking your own capital to make a bundle or lose it.

Schwarz misses the point that classes in our economy are mobile.

His American dream of more equality is one which robs us of the opportunity to succeed big, which will always carry the possibility of failure. They cannot be separated. I choose the current system and dream.

LINDSEY LEE GINTER

Los Angeles