The Founding Tension We Never Resolved

There is a contradiction at the heart of the American project that we have never fully faced.

On the one hand, we claim that all people possess inherent dignity—that worth is not something you earn, but something you are born with. This idea sits at the moral center of democracy. It’s the justification for equal rights, political participation, and the belief that government exists to serve the people. On the other hand, we built our economic system around a very different assumption: that dignity must be proven through productivity, discipline, and success in the market.

From the beginning, these two ideas coexisted uneasily. We never chose between them. Instead, we layered one on top of the other and hoped the cracks wouldn’t show. They are showing now.

Dignity vs. Deservingness

In theory, American politics is about rights. In practice, it is often about deservingness. Who deserves help. Who deserves care. Who deserves stability. Who deserves to stay. We talk about “hardworking families” as if work itself confers moral worth. We argue about “dependency” as if needing support is a character flaw. We design policies full of tests, conditions, and paperwork meant to separate the worthy from the unworthy.

This isn’t accidental. It is the economic logic quietly rewriting our moral commitments. If dignity is inherent, then care is a responsibility we share. If dignity is earned, then suffering can be explained away. So when systems fail, we don’t ask what broke. We ask who didn’t try hard enough.

How Shame Became a Governing Tool

When people cannot meet the demands of the market—because of illness, caregiving, disability, age, bad luck, or structural change—the contradiction becomes personal. Instead of naming systemic failure, we individualize it.

People are told:

• you chose wrong
• you didn’t adapt
• you didn’t plan
• you didn’t hustle
• you didn’t upskill

Shame does the work that policy refuses to do. Over time, that shame hardens into fear. Fear turns into resentment. Resentment gets redirected into cultural conflict—over identity, morality, and belonging—while the underlying structures remain untouched.

This is why our politics feels so angry and so hollow at the same time. We are fighting each other over who deserves dignity instead of deciding how dignity should be protected.

Why Policy Conversations Feel So Empty

Once dignity is tied to market participation, politics shrinks. We stop asking moral questions and start arguing about mechanisms.

How much is affordable?
Who qualifies?
What’s the incentive?
What’s the workaround?

Healthcare becomes a debate about programs instead of a commitment to care. Housing becomes a zoning puzzle instead of a question of shelter. Labor policy becomes a productivity problem instead of a human one. The deeper question—what do we owe each other simply because we are people—is treated as naïve, risky, or unserious.

So we manage decline instead of naming failure. We optimize broken systems instead of redesigning them. We argue about efficiency while people are drowning.

Why This Moment Feels Different

The contradiction is no longer containable.

Markets now demand more flexibility, more availability, more risk absorption from individuals—while offering less stability in return. Caregiving responsibilities have increased. Longevity has extended dependence. Climate disruption is adding strain. Automation and AI are hollowing out once-stable paths.

The promise that “it will work out if you do everything right” is visibly false. People feel it in their bodies. In their exhaustion. In their anxiety. In their fear of falling behind with no net. This is not a crisis of motivation or values. It is a crisis of moral clarity.

What Resolving the Tension Would Actually Require

Resolving this founding tension does not mean abolishing markets. It means deciding, clearly, what they are for. Markets are tools, they are not moral arbiters.

A society that believes in inherent dignity must design systems that:

• treat care as infrastructure, not charity
• recognize human limits as real, not personal failures
• distribute risk collectively instead of privatizing it
• measure success by outcomes, not appearances
• hold extractive behavior accountable for the damage it causes

This is not radical, it is coherent. It is what happens when a society aligns its economic systems with its stated values instead of letting one quietly undermine the other.

The Choice We Keep Avoiding

We can continue pretending this contradiction is manageable—patching, shaming, and fighting over symptoms. Or we can finally decide:

Is dignity something people have, or something they earn?

If it is inherent, then our politics must change. If it is earned, then we should stop pretending otherwise.

The exhaustion so many people feel is not apathy. It is moral dissonance. People are tired of living inside a lie.

This moment—this unraveling—is also an opening. A chance to tell the truth about what we built, what failed, and what we are willing to redesign. Not perfectly. Not pollyanna. But honestly.