Is America An Egalitarian Society Essay

The idea of an egalitarian society has been a part of the American dream since the American dream itself came about. However, not many people are aware of what an egalitarian society is or what it stands for. An egalitarian society is the removal of inequalities from that civilization so that everyone is equal in social status.

But what is the American dream? The American dream means innumerable things to many different people. For example Jiachke believes "the American dream is opportunity" (74) that no matter where you come from or what your social status is you have an opportunity to succeed in America.

As do I many people agree with some points that Jiachke has made in his writing, such that "the opportunity to pursue knowledge freely through a lifetime of learning, growing, changing and evolving" (75) is part of the

Micheal Cox and Richard Alm, authors of By Our Own Bootstraps along with Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett authors of How the U.S. Stacks Up against Other Wealthy, Industrialized Nations are amongst those who hold these beliefs.

Alm and Cox stated "America isn 't an egalitarian society it wasn 't designed to be" (79) but what does that mean it wasn 't designed to be? That statement can be interpreted in many different ways. Under the pretense America was designed as being an egalitarian society however when it came down to it they excluded most of the population from their already tiny society.

For the most part it was equal if you were of a certain status and race but once they started excluding groups of certain people it just widened the gap. Within their society of rich/land owning white males it was equal but not if you weren 't a part of that specific group of people. So in doing that it just increased the tensions between the powerholders and every other