The biggest lie of the modern age is the American Dream(TM), also known as Thatcherism in the UK.
The pitch is that anyone can make it if they work hard. Wealth comes to those who earn it, who do it for themselves.
Actually, most people will never be rich. Most of us spend our entire lives working for other people, earning a salary that tends to fit to a scale set out early on by our choice of career and qualifications.
The sooner you accept this and start trying to make the most of where you are now without chasing dreams of wealth, the sooner you can be happy. Your life is not validated by the amount of money you have, it’s validated by the way you live it.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
2 Comments
http://www.webmd.com/news/20060630/study-money-wont-make-you-happy
Nobel Prize 2002 says more money won’t make you happier.
People seem to think of socialism as something bad because of Thatcherism. The right-wing press feeds into it too with endless stories of people living off benefits and us hard working descent lot paying for their “lifestyle choice”.
In reality we benefit from socialism a lot. The NHS is an obvious example – I know I personally would be bankrupt by now if it wasn’t for free health care. I would never have been able to afford to get a university education without a heavily subsidised loan. I don’t even pay my “fair share” of taxes because my lower tax rate is subsidised by higher earners.
I’m not a benefit scrounger, I’m just an ordinary working class person, like the vast majority in this country. Part of the lie is that everyone thinks they are middle class now, but anyone earning less than £35k themselves certainly is not.
We all benefit from socialist policies. Only the very rich (£100k+) loose out, and even then it hardly affects their lifestyle. I’d argue it actually benefits them because a “no such thing as society” world is not a very pleasant one.
Rather than being angry at the small minority of benefit-scroungers, you should be angry at the rich and those elements of the media who promote policies that benefit themselves at our expense, and even manage to make us be in favour of them.