Analysis Of Nohria In The Envy And The American Dream

The American Nightmare
Close your eyes... All the way. Keep them closed please! Ok now take a deep breath in and imagine yourself inhaling all the beautiful shiny things your heart desires. Imagine inhaling a cold crisp gratifying lungful so satisfying you can feel a release of pressure moving down every individual bone in your rib cage as your lungs fill to their maximum capacity. So full in fact you would start to swear the very air you are breathing has somehow become cleaner. The more you breath, the healthier you begin to feel. Your judgment begins to feel a bit more at ease or maybe even foggy. As you drift off to a... happier state of mind, think for a moment or two what your ultimate vision of the "American Dream" would look like to

(Nohria, Envy and the American Dream) Is it possible the "American Dream" is just a nightmare consisting of the skyrocketing coast of living and the downhill domino effect whipping out the middle class? Is the death of the middle class a part of a larger movement our leaders are creating for a change they don 't want American 's to know too much about? "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." (Nohria, Envy and the

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." (Nohria, Envy and the American Dream) Over the years it appears obvious the focus with emphasis on social media and celebrities who would appear to be filthy rich and happy have majority of American 's "keeping up with the Joneses". The phrase refers to the grand lifestyle of the Joneses who by the mid-century were numerous and wealthy, thanks to the Chemical Bank and Mason connection. It was their relation Mrs. William Backhouse Astor, Jr who began the "patriarch’s balls", the origin of "The Four Hundred", the list of the society elite who were invited. By then the Joneses were being eclipsed by the massive wealth of the Astor’s, Vanderbilt’s and others but the four hundred list published in 1892 contained many of the Joneses and their relations—old money still mattered. (Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, keeping up with the Joneses) The concept of the American Dream has even been widely mocked