Myth or Reality?

The United States is a Land of Equal Opportunity

Edward J. Dodson

[1998]

When one looks at our society, the most striking characteristic observed is that of diversity. The tribal groups who first populated this hemisphere beginning more than 20,000 years ago were (the evidence suggests) of Asian heritage, yet they developed quite differently from one another in their social organization. Today, the majority of us are the descendants of one or more of the European peoples who migrated to the Americas almost continuously after 1492. The numerous tribes of Africa also contributed hundreds of thousands of people, most transported in chains, to the Americas. The first Asian migrants, their tribal populations decimated by disease and warfare, now represent a very small but growing minority; others of Asian heritage arrived in the nineteenth century to work on the construction of the railroads or in the agricultural fields of California farms. In this century, smaller numbers of migrants have arrived from the eastern Mediterranean, the Arabian peninsula and the southern reaches of Asia. Literally millions of others have come more recently from Central America and the Caribbean islands.

In virtually every case other than forced transport, for different reasons at different times, those who came carried with them a vision of a better life. For the tens of thousands who continue to come or wish to come, the United States remains a land of promise and of opportunity. Despite the fact that the United States continues to be a sought after destination by those who migrate, what we see first-hand is that the opportunity presented is far from equal. This was been true from almost the very beginning, when the adoption of Anglo-European socio-political arrangements and institutions imposed an enforced inequality.

The law assigned privileges while limiting political, social and economic rights according to race, religion, ethnicity and sex. Property qualifications restricted the democracy to individuals who were permitted under law to acquire property (primarily land). Inheritance under laws of primogeniture protected the property interests of the first born son, and the laws of entail excluded landed estates from claims by creditors. Under this system of Anglo-European law a rigid form of stratification would have certainly developed, but did not only because of two crucial differences between the Old and New worlds. First in importance was the nearly universal access to free land; and, second, was the experience of self-government established during the first one hundred fifty years of (mostly) English rule in North America. These were also the circumstances that sparked resistance to tighter British rule and directed the movement toward independence from the British empire. That struggle required the involvement of the small farmer and artisan as well as the plantation owner, financier and merchant. And, to sustain the involvement of those nearer the bottom, the leaders were forced to commit to a form of government more representative and more respectful of individual liberty than any that came before.

For the indigenous tribes who lived directly off of what nature provided, North America was certainly a land of opportunity, one their distant forefathers found uninhabited by humans and now denied to them by force a piece at a time. For the Africans who were brought here and for their descendants, few of them would have thought this the land of opportunity. In fact, when one examines the details of everyday life experienced by one immigrant group after another, the reality of their circumstances is far from the rather idyllic scene painted by the French traveller Alexis de Tocqueville, after his tour of a very young nation in the 1830s.

Barely a half century later, millions of illiterate peasants and other immigrants were exploited by a relatively small number of financiers and industrialists given the name robber barons by those who suffered under the weight of their political power and wealth. The early decades of the twentieth century then severely tested promise of our economic, social and governmental institutions. Slowly, grudgingly, as a result of a dynamic process of reform and opposition, the powers of government were expanded to address many of the social and economic problems recognized as threats to the nation. This period is described by historians as the Progressive Era, and a generation of university-educated social scientists, health specialists, engineers and other professionals orchestrated a new social agenda through the political machinery.

Liberalism had arrived, ushering in all sorts of reforms and the beginnings of a welfare state. The depth of the depression during the 1930s, followed by the Second World War, brought to prominence a new generation of policy makers and planners committed to preventing anything like the Great Depression from happening again. Franklin Roosevelt introduced what he called the New Deal, in part to short circuit any radical (e.g., socialist or communist) agitation for political upheaval. Harry F. Truman emerged in 1945 from war as head of a full employment economy, the nation's workers earning high wages in an industrial society ready to rebuild Europe and Japan. Financed by new, low interest, long-term mortgage loans, millions of young Americans achieved homeownership. Thousands took advantage of government loans to obtain college educations.

For the generation of Americans who reached adult age during and immediately after the Second World War, and for their children born during the so-called baby boom years, the promise of the American system was never more real. By virtually every measurement of well-being, the percentage of households in the United States improving their status was on the rise. The Federal and state governments embarked on a massive program of highway building to bring the regions of the nation closer and closer together. Farmland gave way to the developer and the single-family, detached home. As the suburbs blossomed, the older housing stock of the inner cities was turned over to households whose lower incomes could neither maintain the homes or support neighborhood businesses.

Farmers and land speculators became rich; young, upwardly mobile families built new neighborhoods and communities; and, the inner cities ceased to be centers of economic vitality. Banking, insurance, law firms and government continued to provide a safety net of sorts against total collapse, but nearly every city struggled against declining property values, a shrinking tax base and a population increasingly dependent on social welfare programs for survival.

By the late 1960s the mostly Black and Hispanic populations of the nation's inner cities took their frustrations to the streets. The violence that erupted all across the United States was a message to the rest of America that enough was enough. The time had come for a more equitable sharing of the nation's wealth. Unfortunately for the have nots who populated urban and rural ghettos, only matters of direct and overt discrimination have been reasonably well addressed by legislation and enforcement. Liberalism made almost no attempt to attack the underlying causes of poverty; rather, legislation and funding merely mitigated the worst of its effects.

During the last three decades, while hundreds of billions of dollars were being spent -- ostensibly to fight poverty -- the distribution of income and wealth in the United States has continued to become increasingly concentrated. There is, to be sure, a degree of personal responsibility that cannot be ignored as a cause of poverty. Sociologists continue to debate the connections between poverty and the dysfunctional family. More and more parents are forced by economic circumstances to work full-time, often leaving young children unattended for long periods. The drive to accumulate material wealth is frequently given priority over the closeness families shared in past generations. Children born to teenage mothers out of wedlock are most likely to live in poverty, deprived of a positive and nurturing home environment during their formative years. Abuse and neglect in one generation repeat and often exacerbate the problems of the next, the effects compounded by widespread use of alcohol and drugs. Violent crime, the outward sign of societal breakdown, is more visible in poorer neighborhoods and regions than in places of affluence. Yet, the crimes committed by the more educated and wealthy among us affect far more people, damage much more property and have long made our environment hazardous to our health.

We are desperately in need of an educational awakening. If the United States is to ever really become a true land of opportunity, with equal opportunity for all, we must examine our relationship with one another and all our laws and institutions without prejudice. In the process, hopefully we will discover how we can forge a society in which our differences are respected and our rights as human beings are secured.