The classic American Dream is a house with a white picket fence, a wife and 2-3 children and a job that you'll stay with until retirement. Today, you'd be lucky if you get 1 out of 3.

A car a house a family. It is hardly accessable to anyone anymore. House cost 1/4 million dollars. Wages seem to be around $10/hour. math doesnt allow for it

The real "American Dream" is really nothing more than the dream of being able to be successful, however you define it. (As long as you define it in a socially healthy way.) People emigrated to America, not to buy a house with a picket fence, but because of the hope they had for a better life. It was the freedoms that America afforded and the vast frontier that gave impetus to this hope. Unfortunately the "American Dream" has been hijacked my marketers who wish to define it for you in terms that are most suitable to them. Predominately we've been swindled into believing that the American Dream is defined as a home packaged with other idealistic and often materialistic things. This would suggest that real estate agencies are largely responsible for the swindle. (Their marketing has worked as they've convinced generations to pay far too much for homes. Resulting in the bubble we have now.) I really haven't looked into the evolution of the term. I'm glad to see Wikipedia did the subject justice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream The American Dream is still accessible in the US, and as many enslaving governments around the world have changed, it has become less and less a uniquely American thing. I don't think it was ever really accessible to everyone. For one, slavery was once in practice in the U.S. and even today there are individuals who are enslaved, albeit illegally. Slavery is antithetical to the American Dream. If you are reasonably free (obstacles don't count, only impossible barriers count) then the American dream is accessible to you.

Have you read 'The Great Gatsby' by F Scott Fitzgerald, Parsec? It shows ssome of the disillusion with the 'glittering prizes' concept. A lot of American literature of the 30's/40's deals with the idea of the American Dream and also the concommittant disillusionment when people realized the reality of their situation. Steinbeck's 'Grapes of Wrath' is another in this genre, as was 'Of Mice and Men'. It's not accessible to everyone, nor was it ever in fact, but it fird lots of imaginations and brought immigrants in from all over Europe seeking this wonderful ideal. Some made it, eventually. Some never did and some died trying. Maybe the dream has become the nightmare? But, it's global and it's 'progress'. Opportunities exist and it's always down to the individual to spot them and capitalize on them, but sometimes it's impossible with the best will in the world.