The American dream: work hard, look out for yourself and your family, and you’ll make it. You can join the approximately 1135 billionaires that live in the U.S., own fantastic properties, and throw lavish parties. You can become your own Jay Gatsby.
Historian James Truslow Adams, who popularised the idea of the American Dream in his book “Epic of America,” defined it as the “dream of a better, richer, and happier life for all our citizens of every rank.” According to an essay by Sarah Churchwell, this referred to spiritual, not material, riches. However, this country’s productivity culture seems to have missed that particular memo.
The U.S. as a nation is obsessed with productivity. The culture is highly individualistic — built on bettering oneself with little regard for others.The most straightforward way to get ahead and guarantee yourself security, then, is by doing work and earning money. If there is no work, it becomes necessary to create work. This leads to the entrepreneurial work ethic.
As of Jan. 15, federal law does not guarantee paid time off for any employee; rather, that right is at the discretion of the employer. This puts the U.S in the small club of nine countries that do not mandate paid sick leave, along with Somalia and Nauru, to name a couple. Incidentally, Nauru has the second smallest GDP of any country globally, whilst Somalia’s is 148th out of 195 countries. In 2023, the United States had the highest GDP in the world. It strikes me as odd for a highly developed country to count itself among a list of other countries whose people lack access to the kinds of funds and resources that your average American has. The only other country on the list comparable in its lack of paid sick leave to the U.S is South Korea, a country whose work culture is also a long-standing source of controversy. The American government makes no attempt here to allow those that contribute to the economy to earn money whilst not producing a physical product or a service even if that reason is only illness.
The United States is the sixth most capitalistic country in the world, according to Global Citizen Solution, and so by nature, all its economic activity exists in order to create profit. One’s value to a company is based on what one can do for it. At home, being the breadwinner of a household comes with the ability to withhold or spend the money brought in; your work is your power. Through private housing, your work is the roof over your head; through private healthcare, your work is your health, even when your health suffers because of work. Even for those lucky few who fall under jurisdiction of Executive Order 13706, Establishing Paid Sick Leave for Federal Contractors, only seven days of sick leave are allotted, whereas in the U.K., the weekly rate for Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) is £118.75 for up to 28 weeks. My home country is still ranked in GCS’s top 10 most capitalistic countries as linked above, but this difference in workers’ rights indicates the self-contradictory American need for productivity, even at the cost of making an employee’s illness worse and risking those around them. Unsurprisingly, needing to blow your nose or run to the bathroom every five minutes is not conducive to a productive work day for anyone in the workplace. This comes with clear material consequences, given that many workers cannot take time to rest and recuperate without losing their livelihoods.
The highly competitive environment cultivated by a country so rooted in capitalism is impossible to ignore. Even the process to get into a good college, especially with the large financial aid packages most students need to make attendance feasible, requires the creation of so much more material than in my home, according to my American friends. Yes, we need to achieve the required grades, but as part of the application we write one 4000-character essay. Characters, not words. Before even entering the working world, American teenagers are encouraged to spend their own time churning out essays in order to earn the privilege of trying to get a degree, thereby learning to use their time outside the workplace to further professional success.
Americans experience immense pressure to be productive in an environment that does not afford them the rest necessary to do so in a healthy fashion. The government affords no leeway by law, making constant work a necessity for survival. Whilst we all have to put in the work to provide for ourselves and each other, the American culture of overwork and lack of legal support for time off, rest, and recovery ultimately creates immense detriment to health and wellness over a lifetime. The American Dream supposedly acts to propel the people of this country forward, but instead it drives people away from any semblance of work-life balance.
