Harvard Business School Prof John Quelch’s notes on "Selling out the American Dream" (2008-11-06) has been in the back of my mind. He says "Americans need a refresher course on the American dream". He accuses politicians of all sides of hijacking the "American Dream" and reframing it in material terms, rather than using the original intent, which has a sting in the tail I’ll come to later.
He accuses marketers who have exploited this reframing, and the irresponsible borrowers who have been less inconvenienced by the financial woes than the responsible non-borrowers who have to pay to patch everything up.
But underpinning the collapse of the housing bubble is a demand-side problem—the American Dream—that has been hijacked in countless political speeches from an embodiment of America’s core values into a crass appeal to materialism and easy gratification… Too many Americans have been expressing the Dream through the acquisition of stuff.
Quelch obviously has no time for Bush’s post-Word-Trade-Centre call for people to show their patriotism by shopping!
The same sort of hijacking has happened here in Australia, although the dreams were different (don’t ask me how – it’s way too noumenal).
Balneus 