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Envy and the American Dream

by Nitin Nohria

Although it has been nearly 30 years since I came

to the United States to attend graduate school, it

was only a decade ago that I decided to become an

American citizen. I hadn’t thought “becoming

American” would be meaningful or emotional, but it

was. I had to turn in my Indian passport and pledge

allegiance to the United States, and I worried about

losing a piece of my identity. Midway through the process, I was ambivalent. But like

generations of immigrants before me, I went through the interview, took the citizenship

exam, and entered a majestic room—in my case, Boston’s Faneuil Hall—to take the oath.

Standing there, I realized that I was proud to be an American—and that, despite my new

commitment to the United States, I was never going to lose my Indian heritage. This

opportunity for newcomers to hold on to a piece of their past while embracing the promise

of a better future as an American is, I’ve come to believe, just one important attribute of the

set of values we know as the American Dream.

As anyone who paid attention to the 2012 U.S. presidential race can attest, it’s a dream

that seems to be in great peril. “The American Dream is slipping away,” the historian Jon

Meacham wrote before last summer’s political conventions, calling this issue “the crisis of

our time.” We’re right to be deeply concerned. The American Dream is the country’s most

important asset—more valuable than its extraordinary natural resources, deep financial

capacity, or unparalleled workforce. It’s so valuable because it is a narrative that continues

to draw people here from other countries, and it inspires those of us who are already here

to work hard every day to better ourselves and our children. To watch this powerful force

deteriorate is troubling—and understanding what might be done to stop the deterioration is

imperative.

That task has been embraced in several recent books. The Betrayal of the American

Dream, by the veteran investigative reporters Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele,

illustrates the two primary difficulties of writing about this topic, particularly after a drawn-

out campaign. First, the basic facts and forces at work—globalization, outsourcing, the

decline of labor unions, less progressive tax policies, and deregulation—have been

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described in countless newspaper articles, political stump speeches, and attack ads, which

leads to a wearying I’ve-heard-this-all-before feeling. Second, the subject has become so

wrapped up in partisanship that it’s difficult to explore in a thoughtful and fair-minded

manner. Barlett and Steele seem uninterested in even appearing fair-minded: Their one-

sided analysis reads like a liberal manifesto, and ultimately it offers little fresh thinking.

The writer and PBS correspondent Hedrick Smith examines the same forces but offers

deeper, more-thoughtful analysis in Who Stole the American Dream? In particular, he

examines how the “virtuous circle” of prosperous workers that created the consumer

demand that drove the postwar U.S. economy has now been broken. I agree with him that

restoring confidence in the link between business success and social prosperity will be

vital to sustaining the American Dream.

To get the dream back on track, Smith offers prescriptions similar to those espoused by

Barlett and Steele: “fairer” trade, a more progressive tax code, investments in

infrastructure and education, and a shift toward a more responsive and pragmatic politics.

All seem tall orders in an era when bipartisan cooperation is so rare. That’s also true of the

fixes suggested by the Rutgers professor Carl E. Van Horn in Working Scared (or Not at

All): The Lost Decade, Great Recession, and Restoring the Shattered American

Dream, one of the most recent books on this topic. Van Horn draws on voluminous survey

research to examine the problem, and the results are insightful. He does a particularly

good job of capturing the anxiety and vulnerability of working-class Americans in a global

economy, especially those with low skills and educational levels. Van Horn suggests more

direct government employment and broader workforce training initiatives as possible

solutions, but it requires imagination to envision such measures passing the 113th U.S.

Congress, which begins this month.

Taken together, these books offer a dispiriting picture, but it’s important not to succumb to

pessimism. While the American Dream rests on a broad set of virtues—including a strong

work ethic, a belief in meritocracy that enables mobility, and a welcoming attitude toward

immigrants—its foundation is a spirit of optimism. The United States has always had what I

think of as an “ambition economy,” fueled by Horatio Alger tales and reinforced by modern

stories of self-made men and women who’ve become role models in business and politics.

In America it’s natural to tell our children that they can achieve anything they want. In

contrast, many other countries have an “envy economy,” in which parents suppress their

children’s ambition and condition them to accept that they can’t have the things that more-

fortunate citizens possess.

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Lately there are signs that America is shifting from an orientation of ambition toward one of

envy. Whether it is the 99% who envy the 1% or the 53% who resent the 47% who are

receiving government distributions, we are beginning to show signs of focusing more on

others than on ourselves. That’s a shift we want to avoid. Over time envy has a corrosive,

pernicious effect on an economy. It reduces agency and encourages people to attribute

outcomes to forces beyond their control. It shifts people’s gaze toward others in a negative

way and takes their focus off their own goals. In an ambition economy, people generally

enjoy watching others get ahead, because it reinforces their sense that they, too, can

succeed. In an envy economy, in contrast, people often feel like they’re playing in a zero-

sum game and that if someone else gets ahead, it comes at their own expense.

When I was growing up in India, I heard an aphorism that illustrated this dynamic. It was

based on the way fishermen keep the crabs they catch in a tin pail without a top. “You

don’t need a top, because if any crab tries to escape, the other crabs will pull it back

down,” people said. I have no idea whether crabs really behave this way, but the saying

implied that the same was true of Indian society: If one person tried to rise above his class,

the rest would pull him back down. Other cultures have similar sensibilities. In New

Zealand, Australia, the UK, and Canada, they call it the “tall poppy syndrome,” which

refers to how anyone whose achievements set him apart from the crowd is urged to

underachieve and blend in. America is fortunate to have avoided these envy-driven

sentiments, and it’s imperative that we keep it that way.

Certainly America has institutions that need fixing; millions of citizens searching for stable,

sustaining, and meaningful work; a tax code that should be mended; and budget priorities

that need rethinking. But the American Dream is not simply the product of a benevolent

macroeconomic environment; rather, it’s a mosaic of millions of microeconomic dreams of

a better life. Thirty years after my arrival as an immigrant, and despite the current hard

times, I still see America as the best place to live and work and dream. Fixing the

problems that imperil this status will require difficult collective action. In the meantime,

instead of envying the good fortune of others, let’s focus on what we can do to stoke and

further individual ambition.