Picture this: the white picket fence, the ‘happily ever after’ house—sold to you as THE DREAM since you were knee-high to a grasshopper. But peel back the paint, and it’s not a dream; it’s a scam.
You scrape up enough money for the down payment. You move in. First order of business? Slap on a fresh coat of paint and deck it out with décor—because God forbid your soul isn’t reflected in a $50 throw pillow from some stranger’s castoff pad!
Finish decorating, and bam—the tax man swoops in with a grin, hiking your bill because your house’s ‘unrealized value’ (aka imaginary money you haven’t even pocketed) is fair game. Legal robbery? You bet, and they’re popping champagne!
Once you paint, your trusty couch suddenly looks like a thrift store reject—time for an ‘upgrade’! Splurge on a sofa that’ll collapse in three years, a table that wobbles, and beds that creak, all topped with trendy tchotchkes to ‘tie it together.’ Because who needs durability when you’ve got Instagram likes?
Then comes the fun—mowing, repairing, and praying your roof or HVAC doesn’t croak mid-winter. Spoiler: it will, because nothing lasts these days thanks to planned obsolescence.
Now think about this. The fancier the house, the more you pay in tax – taxes are the rent you pay to the government for the right to pretend that you own the land. Don’t believe me? Stop paying those taxes and see what happens. They will repossess your ‘dream’ faster than you can say ‘foreclosure.’
So you slave at your job to buy a house you don’t truly own—thanks to that endless tax rent. Then you grind harder for paint, repairs, and décor, jacking up your tax bill even more. When you’re not working or passed out from exhaustion, it’s mowing, shoveling, or planting posies to keep the façade alive. It’s a treadmill designed to break you.
It’s like a rigged game to keep you slaving away for the system.
Does anyone else see it? Please share your stories in the comments below. I’d love to know if anyone has escaped.
7 responses to “The American Dream is a Lie”
Very interesting it was only upon reading your post that I realized that the myth of the American Dream created by consumerism is basically the Diderot effect under a different name.
As for the best way to beat the rigged game is to follow in the manner of Henry David Thoreau and redefine what success looks like to you. When “success” = “enough” as there reaches a point where the added expense (and its taxes) do not bring enough return to be worthwhile.
But how do we define “enough,” John? We live in a world that tells us that, no matter what we do, it’s never enough.
So how do we handle that?
You are already most of the way there as you realize that consumerist society is trying to brainwash the concept of enough out of existence in the minds of the population. I think the challenge of enough and how to define it is that it is very dependent to one’s needs and situations and what works for you. Such as clothing technically speaking one could get by with only a single set of clothing if they did laundry nightly in the sink and sleep naked when your laundry is drying. Although most people would go for enough as enough clothes to only need to do laundry at once or at most twice a week in a washing machine. Personally when it comes to enough I think you did a wonderful job of the concept of enough when it comes to food in the weight loss book that you wrote a few years ago, which I recently reread as a much needed reminder.
Dear John,
I am so glad that book has helped you.
Have you read the book “the Mechanics of Changing the World” yet? It’s by a guy named Macgregor. I just finished it. I believe you might find it interesting. It gave me a bit to think about. It’s not about advertising per se, but it touches on that and some other subjects that I feel are relevant in our current age.
We sold nearly everything we owned and moved into a motorhome to travel the USA. You can’t buy much along the way because you have no place to put it.
Do you stay in campgrounds or dry camp?
Annie, I absolutely agree with you – the American Dream is definitely a lie. I learned it was a rigged game twenty years ago when I bought my first house as a single mom. Shortly after I bought it, a water pipe leading from the city water main broke and, of course, it was on ‘my side’ so I had to pay to have that repaired, the sidewalk replaced and the lawn repaired. Then I ended up replacing the roof within the next couple of years at the tune of $20K ++. The house was in need of ‘updated’ which I never did. Seriously, updating because the kitchen style was from the 70’s?? That is another scam. Being a single female homeowner led to outrageous quotes from unscrupulous male plumbers, electricians, roofers, etc. I sold that house within 6 years and swore I would never, ever buy again. I have since rented and, unfortunately, the rental market is now another scam with real estate investors and private equity firms buying up the rental properties and jacking up the rent in addition to tacking on umpteen fees. I am ready to move into a tent on a remote piece of property I own in eastern Tennessee and leave this rat race of corporatism with its push for ‘growth, growth, growth at any cost’ for good! Thanks for saying what needs to be said. Hopefully, you will open the eyes of those still deluded by and chasing the myth of the ‘American Dream’.