This document discusses analyzing the American Dream through a Marxist lens. It argues that applying Marxism can reveal hidden relationships between exploiters and exploited within capitalist societies. While the American Dream promises prosperity through hard work, some groups like immigrants face barriers that prevent them from achieving this. Examining the Dream with Marxism can help identify flaws and improve economic justice. However, a fully Marxist system could also create new exploiter/exploited dynamics. Overall, studying Marxism is useful to critically analyze economic systems like the American Dream, not to abandon capitalism altogether.

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Ken Guinto
Professor White
English 205
24 March 2015
A Stronger Consciousness – A Successful Marxism
To some degree, many of us, United States citizens, are slaves to our own political
economy. Yet, some of us are not aware of the correlation between exploiters and exploited that
is represented by those with high political power and the ones that are struggling to make a living.
To eclipse the relationship of exploiter and exploited, our democracy has established a capitalist
society, which creates a foundation in the minds of many citizens to work hard to ascend to a
higher social class while leaving behind those in a lower class. As a result, the American Dream
is derived from our capitalist ideologies to assist citizens in committing to their odyssey of life
with prosperity in wealth, health, and happiness. However, there are some that question the
promise of the American Dream. In particular, Karl Marx’s grand narrative of Marxism has the
potential to challenge the idea of any society. Although many United States citizens may have
their own personal views about Marxism and its flaws, it is important to keep the grand narrative
of Marxism alive, at least in theory, to help us citizens analyze these hidden correlations between
exploiter and exploited that may or may not exist in our ideologies. These ideologies seem to
portray almost perfect social justices. With the ideas of various authors, the American Dream can
be analyzed through Marxist lens to reveal the flaws that our American Dream ideology has and
improve them, and in the process, provide a useful practice of the Marxist grand narrative.
Marxism is already hidden in our society within the American Dream. In his article,
Marxism after Communism, Michael Burawoy discusses how Marxism tends to reappear where

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it is least expected (151). In fact, Buroway reveals that there are three pillars that are necessary
for Marxism to flourish (152). According to him, these three pillars are objectivity, engagement,
and imagination (152). If one were to apply the concept of the three pillars in the American
Dream, one could distinguish how the imagination pillar represents the dream that citizens need
to have in order to break the boundaries that seem limited due to one’s education. In other words,
one may dream to achieve mastery in any profession they wish because they know it is possible
because of the United States’ capitalist economy. Whichever profession one selects represents
the objective pillar of Marxism. Lastly, only if this person takes initiative in achieving that dream
that they have, or objective as we stated, will the person be able to become what they wish. The
taking initiative now represents the engagement pillar of Marxism. Now that these three pillars
have been applied to the American Dream as if they were the correct piece to a puzzle, the
American Dream can be seen from a different perspective. Yet, the American Dream is not
recognized as a Marxist grand narrative. Therefore, it is important for all citizens to recognize
that the American Dream as not only a capitalist ideology, but also an ideology that holds
potential towards assisting other types of economic systems, such as a pure Marxist economy.
For those who are against a pure Marxist economy, by analyzing the American Dream through
this Marxist lens, citizens may find ways to improve our American Dream ideology.
Some citizens mistakenly believe that the American Dream has not kept its promise of a
prosperous life. According to Ray D. Dearin, in his article, “The American Dream as Depicted in
Rober J. Dole’s 1996 Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech,” citizens have claimed that
since the American Dream requires many hours of work to gain income, there are no hours left to
enjoy their riches acquired from working hard (699). Thus, citizens who fall on this fallacy tend
to seek other ways to articulate their dreams of living in a utopia. This is when the grand

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narrative of Marxism is seen as a solution to a capitalist economies’ flaw. In his article,
“Marxism as Utopias: Evolving Ideologies,” Immanuel Wallerstein states, “[A]s long as you
have private property, as long as cash money is the measure of all things, it is really not possible
for a nation to be governed” (1295). Instead of having a vivid life, for some Americans, it means
sacrificing their dreams of living prosperously for their survival. Thus, some may agree with the
allegation that the American Dream does not keep its promise when it indicates that all men have
the potential to make their dreams come true (Dearin 699). However, the American Dream
precisely promises a life with riches, but only from the use of one’s own commitment to work
hard (Dearin 699). A problem may arise when citizens feel unfit to use their abilities to succeed,
or even doubt that they have potential to succeed. If we examine closely, we can conclude that
the hours consumed by working varies with the amount of money paid per hour. Therefore, if a
citizen has a well-paying job, the hours of working will decrease, and result in more hours
available to enjoy one’s riches. However, when one does not have the right education to acquire
a successful career, it will be difficult to have these hours of enjoyment. Thus, those who have
already accumulated enough experience to be successful within an industry, create a higher
social class than those who have not yet accumulated the same level of experience to perfect
their skills. The members of the lower class now represent the exploited and the higher class
represents the exploiters. Hence, as far as the American Dream goes, it did keep its promise
because the quality of one’s life was determined by one’s capability to articulate their abilities
effectively.
Immigrants are not benefiting from the American Dream and are thus creating another
relationship of exploiters and exploited in our economy’s working class. In his article, “Mexican
American and the American Dream,” Richard Alba states, “Lack of legal status drives immigrant

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parents into a social and economic underground” (294). To elaborate with more detail, Alba is
arguing that immigrant’s legal status forces them work at jobs with minimum wage, low working
conditions, and no security (294). Therefore, if we bring back the idea that the American Dream
keeps its promise of a prosperous life only by the articulation of one’s abilities, we can see that
immigrants are not even given a chance to succeed because they are not even entitled to have a
professional career. Moreover, not being documented also creates restrictions for immigrants to
attend college. Alba provides this statistic: “no more than 10 percent of Mexican Americans of
any generation earn a credential beyond high school” (289). Once again, we can examine how
the American Dream also promises a successful career by accumulating hours in preparatory for
it in schools. Yet, if Mexican Americans are not even graduating from high school, we can
conclude that they will assume that the American Dream is not true to its word. We can also see
that there exists a relationship of exploiters and exploited, in which the exploiters are those who
are aware of our nation’s economic crisis and decide to do nothing and the exploited being the
immigrants. Thus, by having a practical use of Marxism to analyze the American Dream, we can
identify how minorities group are not benefiting from the American Dream despite their
presence in our nation. Therefore, for Mexican Americans, it would benefit to learn about Karl
Marx’s grand narrative to argue that even with their experience as proof, there are outside
sources to support their oppression.
Despite the flaws of the American Dream ideology, United States citizens should not
consider terminating the American Dream and completely adapting the ideas of Marxism as an
alternative because there would exists an even stronger correlation of exploiter and exploited. In
Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, “Harrison Bergeron,” the year is 2081, and everybody was finally
equal in every way possible (1). To prevent unfair advantages of their brains, citizens, such as

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George Bergeron, were required by law to wear a transmitter that would send out sharp noise
that would stop them from saying any harmful disparities (1). However, the citizens of this new
utopia were not in control of their actions and therefore, this utopia cannot be a real utopia. In
addition, George Bergeron’s wife, Hazel, saw her fourteen year-old son shot on display on the
television, and she was not even able to pay her condolences for her own son because of the
amount of control that the government had on their citizens (5). In this short story, the exploiters
were those who facilitated the Marxist utopia and the exploited were all of the citizens under the
utopia. The lesson here is that if citizens try too hard to be equal to one another, they will abolish
their values and still have the correlation of exploiters and exploited. In theory, a Marxist utopia
would contain equality in terms of politics, but in the process, alter the quality of life. Therefore,
it is important for citizens in the United States to study Marxism in order to vividly understand
the correlation of exploiters and exploited. As a result, citizens can be aware of theoretical
obstacles that can arise in an economic system and prevent them. In this case, Marxist theory
should be applied to the American Dream as a way to analyze its flaws, but not to disregard the
values of our enduring myth to acquire a successful life on the land of promise.
Karl Marx’s grand narrative of Marxism impacts thinkers to be more open to possible
flaws in utopias. Therefore, it is important for thinkers to continue to study Marxism in order to
apply a Marxist lens on economic systems to find their flaws and improve them. In relevance to
the American Dream, citizens should accept that our United States’ ideology is not perfect, and
accept what the American Dream does promise us. Further, it is important for thinkers to be
aware of who are the ones that play the roles of exploiters and exploited, and consider a solution
for the exploited to gain economic power to reduce the oppression. Lastly, it is necessary to
empower those with political power with the ideas and post-ideas of Karl Marx, in such a way

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that Marxist theory can work similar to a control variable. This way, when the time comes for
those who are empowered to execute a decision that could create a correlation of exploited and
exploiter within an economic system, there will be a stronger sense of consciousness to prevent it.

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Annotated Works Cited
Alba, Richard. “Mexican American and the American Dream.” Perspectives on Politics. Vol. 04,
No. 2 (2006): 289-296. JSTOR. PDF file.
Richard Alba is a Sociology and Public Policy professor at the University of Albany.
Alda’s paper contains information explaining how Mexican Americans are considered a
minorities group. In my paper, I will use some of her data to confirm Mexican
American’s struggle to fight for a prosperous life. This paper also includes information
about Language Assimilation. Although it could be seen as interesting, information about
language assimilation is not relevance to my paper.
Dearin D., Ray. “The American Dream as Depicted in Robert J. Dole’s 1996 Presidential
Nomination Acceptance Speech.” Presidential Studies Quarterly. Vol. 27, No. 4 (1997):
698-713. JSTOR. PDF file.
Ray D. Dearin is a professor of Speech Communication and Political Science at Iowa
State University. In his writing, I will use his interpretations of the American Dream to
support my claims. In this source, there is also some information about the presidential
election of 1996 and the nominees, which I will not touch upon on my paper.
Michael, Burawoy. “Marxism after Communism.” Theory and Society. Vol. 29 (2000): 151-
74. JSTOR. PDF file.
Michael Burawoy studied in the University of California, Berkeley. In his article, he
examined the three pillars of Marxism. In my essay, I will use his ideas of the three
pillars of Marxism to connect it with the American Dream. Although this article is very
strong on the concept of Marxism, it also illustrates The Communist Manifest, which I
will not use at all in my paper.
Vonnegut Jr., Kurt. “Harrison Bergerson.” 1-6. PDF file.
In his short story, Kurt Jr. Vonnegut, portrays a utopia where all are equal. Although this
source is fiction, I will use it in my writing as a way to introduce how theoretically,
having a Marxist utopia does not solve the problem of exploiter and exploited.

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Wallerstein, Immanuel. “Marxism as Utopias: Evolving Ideologies.” American Journal of
Sociology. Vol. 91, No. 6 (1986): 1295-1308. JSTOR. PDF file.
Immanuel Wallerstein’s work was published in the Chicago Journals. The author of this
writing argues that Marxism is evolving and will eventually reach a point where Marxist
theory can form a utopia. However, there would be distortions of three different types of
Marxist. Although I will not speak about the three distortions of Marxism, I will use the
author’s idea that a nation cannot be govern to support my counter argument.