Title: American Dream Definition
Headings: American Dream
American Dream
What Is the American Dream?
Key Takeaways
American Dream
Understanding the American Dream
Advantages and Disadvantages of the American Dream
Advantages
Disadvantages
How to Measure the American Dream
Special Considerations
American Dream FAQs
What Is the Original American Dream?
Is the American Dream Still Achievable?
What Are Examples of the American Dream?
What Is the American Dream in Dr. Martin Luther King's Speech?
The Bottom Line
Article Sources

Content: Advantages and Disadvantages of the American Dream
Advantages
Achieving the American dream requires political and economic freedom, as well as rules of law and private property rights. Without them, individuals cannot make the choices that will permit them to attain success, nor can they have confidence that their achievements will not be taken away from them through arbitrary force. The American dream promises freedom and equality. It offers the freedom to make both the large and small decisions that affect one’s life, the freedom to aspire to bigger and better things and the possibility of achieving them, the freedom to accumulate wealth, the opportunity to lead a dignified life, and the freedom to live in accordance with one’s values—even if those values are not widely held or accepted. The books of post-Civil War writer Horatio Alger, in which impoverished but hardworking teenage boys rise to success through pluck, determination, and good fortune, came to personify realizing the Dream. 3
The American dream also offers the promise that the circumstances of someone's birth—including whether they were born American citizens or immigrants—do not completely determine their future. Disadvantages
Terming it a "dream" also carries with it the notion that these ideals aren't necessarily what has played out in the lives of many actual Americans and those who hope to become Americans. The criticism that reality falls short of the American dream is at least as old as the idea itself. The spread of settlers into Native American lands, slavery, the limitation of the vote (originally) to white male landowners, and a long list of other injustices and challenges have undermined the realization of the dream for many who live in the United States. As income inequality has increased substantially since the 1970s, the American dream has begun to seem less attainable for those who aren't already affluent or born into affluence.