Constitutive Elements

Abstract

In the beginning of this book, I referred to the constitutive elements of the American Dream. These elements are individualism, equal oppor­tunity, and success. In this chapter and the next, I focus on the specific politics that these three terms can accommodate. First, in this chapter, I offer some conceptual clarifications of these terms. In doing so, I trace their roots back to Puritan thought in general and Lockean thought in particular. In the previous chapter, I have suggested that the contempo­rary ideology of the American Dream has an intimate relationship with a very specific strand of Puritanism. I develop this argument further here and point out the extraordinary extent to which Lockean ideas influence each of the constitutive elements of the American Dream. The aim here is not only to point out that the Dream’s tenets derive from Lockean liberalism but also to make a larger point (elaborated in the next chapter) about the various types of politics these terms’ invocations enable. In Chapter 6, I will describe how the constitutive elements of the Dream lend themselves to an elastic range of meanings leading to what I call a “politics of multiple meanings.” The versatility of the Dream and the range of meanings its constitutive elements can accommodate together explain why leaders across the ideological spec­trum can refer to this ideological trope with seemingly equal facility and enthusiasm. But, to start with, in this chapter, I describe the roots of each of these terms and clarify what these concepts mean and where they come from.