Jeremy Rifkin: The European Dream So we are all familiar with the proverbial American Dream. Whether it exists or not, whether it is attainable or not are questions that better to be left alone at this point because there appears to be another proverbial dream that has emerged that demands our attention. According to Jeremy Rifkin, the idea of American dream is not only outdated, it is also being quickly replaced by the European Dream. "While the American Spirit is tiring and languishing in the past," Rifkin writes, "a new European Dream is being born.." In his book, The European Dream, Rifkin lays down the thesis that America has lost its charm, its appeal and almost everything it once symbolized, the new American generation is overweight, under-educated and unnecessarily aggressive with little or no regard for religion. So the American Dream that revolved around tapping into opportunities, buying a nice home and amassing every kind of consumer good that one could possibly think of now sounds "far too centered on personal material advancement and too little concerned with the broader human welfare to be relevant in a world of increasing risk, diversity and interdependence." For this reason American Dream now needs a better replacement and according to Rifkin, it has arrived in the form of European Dream which "emphasizes community relationships over individual...

The author maintains that everything negative about Europe somehow goes into its favor if we pay closer attention. The charge of lower productivity and lower wages for example is one that often emerges when Europe is compared to its colossal counterpart America. But lower productivity doesn't depict poor performance; it only symbolizes a desire to balance work and leisure. Why work all the time at the cost of your personal life. At least Europeans are not prepared to embrace such a life-plan. They want to be able to enjoy little things in life and make enough to do so. Their main purpose is "not to live to earn" but to "earn to live." The other charge is the unemployment rate. How could Europe be better when it has a higher unemployment rate? Rifkin counters this charge with massive statistical data. The author proves that America's unemployment rate is just as high only there is more hidden unemployment than meets the eye. If…