Name: Course Number and Session: Semester / Year: American Greed: Corporate Selfishness and the End of the American Dream For more than eighty years, Americans have sought inspiration, direction and purpose from the American Dream. The American Dream is a concept that encompasses many principles that drive Americans in their lives. The most important of them is the ideal that any American, regardless of race, gender or age, can live a fulfilling life if he or she works hard and secures the opportunities that the country grants them. However, recent decades have seen the dream wither and fade in the minds of many Americans. Hedrick Smith posits that the American Dream is long dead, along with the values and ideals that it represented. The death of the dream started with corporate greed and then extended to selfishness within American political institutions such as Congress and the Senate. The erosion of the American Dream came to fruition in 2008, when the Lehmann Brothers collapsed and sparked off a recession that plunged millions of Americans into financial difficulties. The late 2000s American recession was evidence of Smith’s claim that the American Dream has died because of corporate greed and political irresponsibility. In Who Stole the American Dream?, Hedrick Smith analyzes the concept of the American Dream. Smith specifically focuses on the dream’s slow and brutal demise over the past four centuries. According to Smith, the dream started dying in 1971 when Lewis Powell released a political manifesto lamenting the victimization of American corporations. . Hedrick Smith, Who Stole the American Dream? (New York: Random House, 2012), 30. Following Powell’s manifesto, America’s political institutions started to develop a more favorable outlook towards corporations and businesses. Smith argues that American businesses and political institutions developed a close relationship that revolved around corporate lobbying efforts. . Ibid. This relationship thrived at the expense of the American Middle Class, which had been growing steadily in the three decades after the Second World War. . Ibid., 19. With the Middle Class now floundering, the gap between the rich and the poor grew even wider in the US. Meanwhile American political institutions and corporations became more concerned with their private interests than the greater good for all Americans. The culmination of this greed in the American private sector and political class is what led to the current predicament of an America that is struggling to keep up with emerging economies such as China. Much of Smith’s criticism of the slow demise of the American Dream is evident in the events that surrounded the late 2000s recession. Smith identifies several issues that he believes led to the dream’s demise. One of the most important problems he defined was corporate greed. Before American corporations became greedy and profit-oriented, they shared their success with all of the stakeholders. These stakeholders included workers, investors, and communities. However, greedy business models soon changed this practice and corporations became reluctant to share success with their workers. Smith notes that between 1973 and 2011, productivity rose by almost three percent annually but employee wages remained flat. America’s working class experienced “three decades of getting nowhere”. . Ibid., 100. The same element of corporate greed was evident in the situation surrounding the 2008 recession. According to Lo, American corporations planted the seeds of the 2008 crisis at a time when the country was prosperous. . Quoted in Cate Reavis, “The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009: The Role of Greed, Fear and Oligarchs,” MITS Loan Management 09-093 (2009): 5, accessed October 27, 2015, https://mitsloan.mit.edu/LearningEdge/CaseDocs/09-093%20The%20Financial%20Crisis%20of%202008.Rev.pdf. During this time, the nation’s greed was driven by its profit motive. This greed blinded the players in the American market and they stopped worrying about the possibility of incurring large losses. The result of this greed was a global recession that shocked the world and brought America’s middle class to its knees. Along with America’s greedy corporations, the country’s political institutions bear responsibility for the death of the American Dream and the 2008 recession. Smith laments Powell’s 1971 manifesto as the starting point of America’s decline into a cesspit of greed. . Hedrick Smith, Who Stole the American Dream? (New York: Random House, 2012), 31. One of the direct effects of Powell’s manifesto was the emergence of a close symbiotic relationship between America’s political class and business body. Without this relationship, American corporations would have never been able to reverse the gains made by the middle class and lower classes in the years after the Second World War. Smith notes that within a decade of Powell’s manifesto, the number of businesses with offices in Washington increased exponentially. The presence that these corporations now had in Washington enabled them to lobby the government intensely. . Ibid., 36. Corporations formed Political Action Committees for lobbying purposes and have since used them to influence politicians. For instance, Smith notes that in 2010, “business interests pumped in $972 million in soft money contributions”. . Ibid., 160. According to Smith, these contributions have prevented the government from listening to the public or catering for its needs, with politicians instead focusing on the business interests that fund their campaigns. . Ibid. The result is a country in which the interests and needs of the rich minority trounce those of the majority. The impact of the relationship between America’s corporations and political class was evident in the 2008 recession. Reavis argues that American corporations took advantage of their exponential growth between the 1980s and 2000s to gain a lot of political influence. . Reavis, “The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009: The Role of Greed, Fear and Oligarchs,” 8. After amassing a lot of wealth during this period, American corporations then formed a cozy relationship with Washington. Johnson argues, “oversize institutions disproportionately influence public policy”. . Quoted in Cate Reavis, “The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009: The Role of Greed, Fear and Oligarchs,” MITS Loan Management 09-093 (2009): 8, accessed October 27, 2015, https://mitsloan.mit.edu/LearningEdge/CaseDocs/09-093%20The%20Financial%20Crisis%20of%202008.Rev.pdf. The influence borne some of these institutions enabled them to lobby for industrial deregulation. A prime example of this deregulation was the Clinton Administration’s decision to repeal the Glass-Steagal Act in 1999, one that Reavis claims led to the recession. . Ibid, 11. The deregulation that resulted from this close relationship created a recession that led to the unemployment of millions of Americans and saw tens of thousands become homeless. Looking at the recession that struck America in 2008, it is evident that the corporate greed and political irresponsibility that typified the US for the past four decades have succeeded in killing the American dream. The 2008 recession created a hostile financial and economic atmosphere that made life difficult for many Americans. In the midst of rising debt, homelessness and unemployment, many Americans felt that the American Dream was dying. . Karen L. Higgins, Financial Whirlpools: A Systems Story of the Great Global Recession (Oxford: Academic Press, 2013), 75. Some of the targets that people had long attached to the American Dream such as owning homes became unachievable for many Americans after the recession. For some Americans, the situation was difficult even before the recession, as more most believed they would never own their own homes, a critical aspect of the dream. The despair seemed to increase after the economic crisis struck, with less than a third of Americans believing that they can still achieve the dream in 2011. . Ibid. Accordingly, it seems to be that for most Americans, the dream of succeeding in a nation that many laud for its opportunities and prosperity withers every day, as corporations continue to grow more powerful. While it is evident that the relationship between corporations and political institutions in the US has harmed the country’s middle and lower class substantially, there is a chance that the American Dream still lives. Above all else, the American Dream was about giving people the opportunity to succeed, as long as they worked hard and seized any opportunities that they came across. Some aspect of this dream remains in the country, as the country continues to lead the world in innovation. Additionally, the fact that almost a third of Americans continue to believe in the dream shows that it can still be salvaged if the relevant parties take steps in the right directions. . Ibid. In Who Stole the American Dream?, Smith identifies some of the measures that can help America recover its lost glory. Some of these repairs include pushing innovation and research, cuts on military spending, an overhaul of the tax system, and an increase in the support given to the country’s welfare systems. . Smith, Who Stole the American Dream?, 461-478. Bibliography Higgins, Karen L. Financial Whirlpools: A Systems Story of the Great Global Recession. Oxford: Academic Press, 2013. Reavis, Cate. “The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009: The Role of Greed, Fear and Oligarchs.” MITS Loan Management 09-093 (2009): 1-22. Accessed October 27, 2015. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/LearningEdge/CaseDocs/09-093%20The%20Financial%20Crisis%20of%202008.Rev.pdf. Smith, Hedrick. Who Stole the American Dream? New York: Random House, 2012. With these measures, the nation can salvage what remains of the American Dream and use that to provide inspiration for future generations as they seek to succeed in a once prosperous nation. The death of the American Dream is a great tragedy for virtually all Americans. Hedrick Smith argues that this demise has resulted from a worrying combination of corporate greed and political irresponsibility. The concerns that Smith raises in his book were evident in the 2008 recession, a crisis that resulted from the close relationship between America’s political class and corporations. However, there is some hope that Americans can revive this dream even as they struggle to rein in the corporate greed that lies deeply rooted in the country’s modern traditions. If the American Dream is to survive, the middle and lower class will have to work hard to regain the influence they once rightfully had on the political class and win their country back from greedy businesses.  Notes 8