The Transformation of the ‘American Dream’
“TheAmerican Dreamis back.” President Trump made that claim in a speech in January.
“美国梦回来了，”特朗普总统在一月份的演讲中说。
They are ringing words, but what do they mean? Language is important, but it can be slippery. Consider that the phrase, the American Dream, has changed radically through the years.
听出来斩钉截铁，可它究竟意味着什么呢？语言诚然重要，却也靠不住。就说“美国梦”这个说法吧，多年来已发生巨大变化。
Mr. Trump and Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, have suggested it involves owning a beautiful home and a roaring business, but it wasn’t always so. Instead, in the 1930s, it meant freedom, mutual respect and equality of opportunity. It had more to do with morality than material success.
特朗普先生与住房和城市发展部部长本·卡森认为，美国梦是拥有一所漂亮的房子和事业兴隆，其实并非一直如此。相反，在二十世纪三十年代，美国梦意味着自由、相互尊重和机会平等。美国梦更多与道德观而非物质成功有关。
This drift in meaning is significant, because the American Dream — and international variants likethe Australian Dream, Le Rêve Françaisand others — represents core values. In the United States, these values affect major government decisions on housing, regulation and mortgage guarantees, and millions of private choices regarding whether to start a business, buy an ostentatious home or rent an apartment.
意义迁移至关重要，因为美国梦极其国际变体，如澳大利亚梦、法国梦等，代表着核心价值。在美国，这些价值影响了政府在住房、规制和抵押担保等方面的主要决策，同样影响到数百万个私人选择，关乎是否创业、购买豪宅还是租间公寓。
Conflating the American dream with expensive housing has had dangerous consequences: It may have even contributed to the last housing bubble, the one that led to the financial crisis of 2008-9.
将美国梦与昂贵住宅混为一谈已经产生危险的后果：那甚至助推了上一轮地产泡沫，导致了2008年到2009年的金融危机。
These days, Mr. Trump is using the hallowed phrase in pointed ways. In his January speech, he framed the slogan as though it were an entrepreneurial aspiration. “We are going to create an environment for small business like we haven’t seen in many many decades,” he said, adding, “So, essentially, we are getting rid of regulations to a massive extent, could be as much as 75 percent.”
如今，特朗普先生以直截了当的方式使用这个神圣说法。一月演讲中，他定义了这个标语，好像它说的是企业家抱负。“我们准备为小企业创造百年未见的环境，”他说。“因此，从根本上说，我们要大幅去除监管，比例会高达75%。”
Mr. Carson has explicitly said that homeownership is a central part of the Dream. In aspeech at the National Housing Conference on June 9, he said, “I worry that millennials may become a lost generation for homeownership, excluded from the American Dream.”
卡森先生明确表示，房屋所有权是美国梦的核心。6月9日，他在国家住房会议演讲中说：“我担心千禧一代可能成为失去房屋所有权的一代，无缘美国梦。”
But that wasn’t what the American Dream entailed when the writer James Truslow Adamspopularizedit in 1931, in his book “The Epic of America.”
可这并非作家詹姆斯·特拉斯洛·亚当斯1931年在《美国的史诗》书中推火“美国梦”时要说的意思。
Mr. Adams emphasized ideals rather than material goods, a “dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” And he clarified, “It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and recognized by others for what they are.”
亚当斯先生强调了理想，而非物质，那是“按各自能力或成就各得其所，人人生活更加美好、更加富裕、更加圆满的一片土地上的梦想”。他明确指出，“并非仅仅是开汽车、拿高薪的梦想，而是每个男人和女人可以最充分地实现其内在禀赋，并获得他人认可的社会秩序之梦”。
His achievement was an innovation in language that largely replaced the older terms “American character” and “American principles” with a forward-looking phrase that implied modesty about current success in giving respect and equal opportunity to all people. The American dream was a trajectory to a promising future, a model for the United States and for the whole world.
亚当斯的成就在于语言的创新，用积极进步的说法大体替代了“美国性格”和“美国宗旨”等旧词汇，这暗含了对当前成功的谦逊态度，尊重所有人，赋予所有人平等的机会。美国梦是通向美好未来的轨迹，合众国和全世界的范本。
In the 1930s and ’40s, the term appeared occasionally in advertisements for intellectual products: plays, books and church sermons, book reviews and high-minded articles. During these years, it rarely, if ever, referred to business success or homeownership.
二十世纪三四十年代，这个用法偶尔出现在知识产品的广告中：戏剧、图书和祷告词、书评以及高冷的文章中。这些年中，它极少指商业成功或房屋所有权。
By 1950, shortly after World War II and the triumph against fascism, it was still about freedom and equality. In a book published in 1954, Peter Marshall, former chaplain of the United States Senate, defined the American Dream with spiritually resounding words: “Religious liberty to worship God according to the dictates of one’s own conscience and equal opportunity for all men,” he said, “are the twin pillars of the American Dream.”
到1950年，二战和反法西斯胜利后不久，美国梦依然说的是自由平等。1954年出版的一本书中，曾经的美国参议院会前牧师彼得·马歇尔用鲜明的灵性语言定义“美国梦”：“依个人良知之支配敬奉上帝的宗教自由及众生机会平等，是美国梦的两大支柱。”
The term began to be used extensively in the 1960s. It may have owed its growing power to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speechin 1963, in which he spoke of a vision that was “deeply rooted in the American Dream.” He said he dreamed of the disappearance of prejudice and a rise in community spirit, and certainly made no mention of deregulation or mortgage subsidies.
六十年代，这一说法的使用宽泛起来。可能因为马丁·路德·金1963年演讲《我有一个梦想》让其影响力日增，他提出的愿景“深植在美国梦之中”。他说自己梦想着偏见消失，社群精神崛起，肯定并未提及放松管制或按揭补贴。
But as the term became more commonplace, its connection with notions of equality and community weakened. In the 1970s and ’80s, home builders used it extensively in advertisements, perhaps to make conspicuous consumption seem patriotic.
但随着这个用法日益流行，其与平等和社群观念的联系就弱化了。七八十年代，建筑商在广告中广泛使用，可能旨在让摆阔看起来爱国。
Thanks in part to the deluge of advertisements, many people came to associate the American Dream with homeownership, with some unfortunate results. Increasing home sales became public policy. In 2003, President George W. Bush signed theAmerican Dream Downpayment Act, subsidizing home purchases during a period in which a housing bubble — the one that would lead to the 2008-9 financial crisis — was already growing at a 10 percent annual rate, according to theS.&P.
部分归功于广告泛滥，许多人开始把美国梦和房屋所有权联系起来，这带来某些不幸的后果。增加房屋销售成为公共政策。2003年，乔治·W·布什总统签署《美国梦购房首付法案》，对购房进行补助，标普数据显示，那一时期的房产泡沫已经以每年10%的速度增长，泡沫导致2008年和2009年金融危机。
This year, Forbes Magazine started what it calls the “American Dream Index.” It is based on seven statistical measures of material prosperity: bankruptcies, building permits, entrepreneurship, goods-producing employment, labor participation rate, layoffs and unemployment claims. This kind of characterization is commonplace today, and very different from the original spirit of the American dream.
今年，《福布斯》杂志推出所谓的“美国梦指数”，基于物质繁荣的七个统计指标：破产、建造许可、创业、商品生产雇佣、劳动参与率、下岗和失业救济等。今天这种描述很常见，和美国梦最初的精神相当不同。
One thing is clear: Bringing back the fevered housing dream of a decade ago would not be in the public interest. In “House Lust: America’s Obsession With Our Homes,”published in 2008, Daniel McGinn marveled at the craving for housing in that era: “In many neighborhoods, if you’d judged the nation’s interests by its backyard-barbecue conversation — settings where subjects like war, death, and politics are risky conversational gambits — a lot of people find homes to be more compelling than any geopolitical struggle.”
有一点很清楚：公众对重温十年前狂热的购房热潮不感兴趣了。2008年出版的《房欲：美国执迷于房产》一书中，丹尼尔·麦金尼惊讶于那个时代的购房渴望：“在许多社区，如果以在后院烧烤时的话题判断国家的兴趣，在哪里谈论战争、死亡和政治等都要冒些风险，许多人发现谈论房子比谈任何地缘政治斗争都更有吸引力。”
This is not to say that homes have no appropriate place in our dreams or our consciousness. To the contrary, in a 2015 book “Home: How Habitat Made Us Human,” the neuroanthropologist John S. Allen wrote, “We humans are a species of homebodies.” Ever since humans began making stone tools and pottery, they have needed a place to store them, he says, and the potential for intense feelings about our homes has evolved.
并不是说买房不应出现在我们的梦想或我们的意识之中。与此相反，神经人类学家约翰·S·艾伦在2015年出版的《家：栖息地让我们成为人》一书中写道，“我们人类是居家物种”。自从人类开始制造石器和陶器依赖，他们就需要一个储存之所，于是对希望拥有家的强烈想法就出现了。
But the last decade has shown that with a little encouragement, many can easily become excessively lustful about homeownership and wealth, to the detriment of our economy and society. That’s the wrong way to go. Instead, we need to bring back the American Dream of a just society, where everyone has an opportunity to reach “the fullest stature of which they are innately capable.”
可过去十年表明，只要稍加鼓励，许多人就会过分贪图房产和财富，这对经济和社会有害无利。那个路子是错的。相反，我们需要把公正社会的美国梦找回来，让每个人都有机会“充分实现其内在之禀赋”。
作者简介：罗伯特·希勒，耶鲁大学经济系教授，斯坦利·里索经济学教授。 2013年因“资产价格实证分析方面的贡献”获得诺贝尔经济学奖。获奖理由是，在资产定价实证分析领域有重要贡献。
