Redefining progress and the American Dream.

Hearing a radio interview about career opportunities for today's young people brings me back to my first years out of college as if nothing ever changes.

It's said that this generation may be the first to have lower standards of living and smaller homes than their parents. I heard that before and I keep thinking, smaller homes, but maybe better social lives?

Since my college days, I've been thinking that we are running out of room on planet Earth. If not actually running out of room, at least economic development has been constrained by more and more regulations. These regulations are attempting to protect the environment, such as farmland preservation, wetland rules, zoning and so forth.

If not actual limits to growth, we have imposed red tape limits which is basically what people, on the right, keep harping on. I still think most of these limits are there for good reasons. Yes, we do need to protect the environment. Still, this does have an effect on the ease of attaining economic growth and prosperity.

For years, I've kept thinking it's a tradeoff. We can live better without necessarily consuming more space on the planet.

Examples of this come from social progress in personal fulfilment and community life. Progress in gay rights is one example. More use of public transit, versus the space hogging private automobile, is another example.

For the entirety of my adult life, at least, cities, such as Seattle, have delt with traffic congestion. I keep thinking we could solve that, but people have just acquiesced to it instead; for the most part.

Back in my days right out of college, the big issue was lack of job creation. Industry faced red tape limits. Mining was going overseas and so forth. We faced the energy crisis with gas rationing during my college years. Since then, new technologies have brought more fossil fuel energy from fracking and so forth. Innovation and substitution has brought new wealth around the limits. We've had the tech boom.

Lack of affordable housing is a big issue now, whereas back in my past, it was more the lack of jobs. Today, there are more jobs, but they don't pay enough to afford the same space in housing.

Somehow, I still keep thinking we need to make fundamental changes in the way we define as the American Dream. I still think life can be better now than in (for instance) the 1950s. "Better" can be defined in different ways. Information and personal choices can be seen as wealth. Free time can be seen as wealth.

We need to think differently about the definition of the American Dream. Just taxing the super wealthy isn't going to solve this problem. Yes, I'm for taxing the rich, but even just taxing the super rich still has consequences for all consumers. Today, people are worried about Washington State's wealth tax chasing away the super rich and businesses with them. Will this impoverish our state?

We may need to learn to redefine what wealth means. Can one have a happy life while not necessarily living in a bigger house than their grandparents lived in?