Is the American Dream actually about inequality?

The American Dream is a complex phenomenon. I think that it is a great dream in many respects and perhaps can be boiled down to, "everyone deserves a good life." However, there is also a dark underbelly to our concept of the American Dream. This dark underbelly is composed of both the mental models held at large in our society concerning the American Dream and the actual structure of our economic system.

Lets start with a discussion of the structure of our system. In one of Norm's posts yesterday he talked about the role our financial sector is supposed to play; that of allocating capital to its most productive uses. So, this sector of our economic system is really supposed to act more as a secondary level sector. What I mean by that is its role is secondary to, or to facilitate the activity of, the productive parts of the economy. However, Norm notes that, "financial assets grew from 81% to 137% of GDP between 1990 and 2005." This is indicative of a financial sector which has started to use its wealth and power to generate its own product, more wealth and power, instead of facilitate the growth of industries which produce real goods and services that people need. If the products produced by financiers, banks, and Wall Street are equal to 137% the value of GDP (which is supposed to measure the market value of all real goods and services), then this sector is using wealth to produce wealth for the wealthy. We are all currently experiencing the results of this development in our economic system as we struggle through what is being called The Great Recession which was caused by the highly risky activities of the financial sector. The events which led up to the Great Recession can be most aptly described by what a former BGI student called, a "profit tornado."