American Dream: Radio Reflections

HERE the first in an NPR series on the American Dream.

The American Dream is an implicit contract that says if you play by the rules, you'll move ahead. It's a faith that is almost unique to this country, says Michael Dimock of the Pew Research Center.
"When Germans or French are asked the same questions about whether it's within all of our power to get ahead, or whether our success is really determined by forces outside our control, most German and French respondents say, 'No, success is really beyond our control,' " Dimock says.

This bit identifies something we may have underplayed in our class' focus on perpetual dis-satisfaction: the expectation and confidence that satisfaction (success or happiness) is obtainable, more precisely that these are within our personal control.

Current discussion, including the linked story, suggests that this confidence is on the decline.  That observation raises related questions: what is the basis of the confidence and its loss?  How possible has it been for the average American or for most Americans to get ahead in past decades?  And how much of that was in individual's control?

Now I also wonder about the effect of declining confidence on our willingness to be generous to others?  Is it the case that when individuals feel that the deck is stacked against us that we become less willing to give others help?  If so is that because we figure that there is only so much good luck available and we want to keep ours for ourselves?  I recall reading about this notion of limited luck in an anthropological article about fishing cultures, more specifically about pre-modern, peasant Norwegian fisherfolk.