Salary as a Report Card and the American Dream

In the early 1900s the Industrial Revolution in America was occurring and captains of industry such as Carnegie and Rockefeller began to create companies much like the companies of today's business world. With the rise of these two men came the rise of the American Dream; of one day rising from poverty to a peak covered in millions of dollars. Many immigrants came to America in search of this dream and many Americans toiled daily in search of this dream. From this dream came an obsession with money and a thought process that money is success. This American Dream was the beginning of the school of thought that one's salary is one's report card for life. After the Industrial Revolution every person was in the fight to make a dollar and that fight was no holds bar. People would disregard friends, family and community just take get rich because people saw money as happiness and the path to being successful. This pattern continued and continues to this day without taking into account the value of family, friends, self respect, helping other, etc. All these things can label one as successful, but it is a more interpersonal form of success. So, with the judgmental, self conscious public out there salary will continue to be a measure of success, which is atrocious and plays directly to the base Americans have created for themselves in the Marxist view of society.