The American Dream Social Class

“Life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.” This is James Truslow Adam’s definition of the “American Dream” in his 1931 novel, Epic of America. This idea came from the ideals that our founding fathers believed in. This definition of the “American Dream” seems agreeable ,but many question whether the “American Dream” is something that could actually be achieved by anyone. The 1% is living proof that one could actually achieve the “American Dream” because they are actually living the “American Dream.” But what about the 99% who are struggling to live the “American Dream” or even struggling to make a good living?

This automatically gives one the upper hand. Being in the upper class may seem miniscule because the “ American Dream” is proclaimed to be accessible to anyone who has enough ambition and intelligence, and if a person works hard enough they can make it. But looking at people like Bill Gates, it is seen that money does in fact have a huge impact. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and with his friends, created their own business widely known as Microsoft. Before he became the multi-billionaire , he had already come from a pretty wealthy family. His father was an excessive lawyer, and his mother was the daughter of a well-to-do banker. He was in a public school but his parents moved him to a private school at the beginning of his seventh grade year. Two years later the school began a computer club. At the time, the majority of schools didn’t have access to computers or computer programming but Bill’s school did. Many opportunities were presented to Bill, but the major one was that Bill Gates was sent to that one private school with a computer programming club and his parents had the money to pay for it all. If a child who came from a low income family had the same ambitions as Bill Gates, he wouldn’t have had the opportunities like Bill because that child