I think it’s fair to say that people often describe owning your own home as the American dream. (Let’s put aside for the moment the number of those dreams experiencing a setback in today’s economy.) Back in May 2007 the New York Times described the dream of home ownership as “a bedrock notion of society promoted by presidents for decades.” (Ironically the article was about how it might not be for everyone given the looming mortgage crisis.)

If we all generally accept that home ownership is a worthy dream for every American, even though every American might not get there, why don’t we believe that business ownership is an equivalent worthy dream for every American. I’m not talking about playing the stock market. I mean owning your own business.

I got a little inspired for this post by Damir Horvat’s post “Fuck college education, start minding your own businness instead“. He writes:

“What are the alternatives? There are a few, but the best one is to start your own business. Yes, I’ll say it again, start your own business. I know, it’s hard, you may fail, go broke, loose few friends, gain few enemies, … I’ve heard it all. Even seen some of it. “

Jenny points out that not everyone can own their own business… there have to be employees sometimes. But Jenny and Walter and I own our business. We are also the only full-time employees. Two of our most used contractors also own their own businesses (and we’re their favorite customer!). But her point still stands. And while we may agree that home ownership is the dream, we also know that there may always be people who don’t own their own homes.

In general I find that for the vast majority of Americans, getting real independence (both in terms of how you spend your time and the financial variety) fundamentally comes down to whether you own something. When a business succeeds, your chances of being able to walk away with a non-trivial percentage of the proceeds typically depend on whether you have ownership or not.

Maybe what’s necessary is a new standard for Americans where their dream is to either own their own business, or work at a business where they’re treated like owners (guaranteed to participate in a significant percentage of the upside, treated like adults, etc.). Maybe if this was the dream, we’d have not only a lot more new businesses popping up, but a lot more businesses who need to treat employees like owners in order to attract them.