Tilting at windmills.

• Author: Peters, Charles

HOW FICTITIOUS IS THE UPWARD mobility that is supposed to be part of the American dream? The subject was most recently raised by the movie Maid in Manhattan, in which Jennifer Lopez plays a hotel chambermaid who snares a rich, aristocratic politician portrayed by Ralph Fiennes. A few years ago in Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts played a prostitute--have you noticed that the PC term is now "sex worker"?--who gets the wealthy Richard Gere. The answer, according to Caryn James of The New York Times, is that upward mobility is mostly a fantasy. She cites the increasing wealth gap between rich and poor. I agree, both about the gap and the fantasy. I also think that there is another equally large gap between the meritocratic elite and the people who for one reason or another don't pass the tests that determine everything from who gets into the right nursery school to whether one passes through the certifying rituals of the Ivy League. Since those tests don't measure character, wisdom, or the actual ability to perform a job, they leave a disturbing number of good and talented people behind.

I'M FASCINATED, HOWEVER, BY the ways upward mobility is still possible. Physical beauty combined with an engaging personality still works for a lot of women and some men, especially if they encounter a Henry Higgins along the way. Skill in sports or the performing arts also smoothes the upward path.

Increasingly, however, people seem to look to luck in the form of winning the lottery or getting injured just enough to win a big lawsuit without suffering serious, permanent disability. I think this explains a lot about the growth of public support for and participation in legalized gambling--and for the public's lack of interest in tort reform that might cap damage awards. These are two ways the fantasy of upward mobility has begun to influence public policy. Another is that the people who think they will someday be rich themselves are less willing to support taxing the rich. David Brooks recently cited a survey showing that 40 percent of Americans think of themselves as either being among the top 1 percent of the nation's wealthy, or on their way to getting there. This means that the wealthy are able to protect their bounty by offering just enough crumbs of opportunity to the poor to keep the fantasy alive and to keep them from insisting on the right to a good education that more than anything else might make upward mobility a reality.

MOST ALARMING TO ME, IS HOW many people see becoming rich as a major goal of their lives. This has become embarrassingly obvious in the case of the women on the television show "Joe Millionaire," and the millions of other women who identify with them. But it has been increasingly true of Americans generally since I was a young man. I was fortunate enough to grow up thinking that the most important things in life were finding a woman you loved and work that you enjoyed, that made a contribution to society, and that you were proud of. I never made a lot of money, but I have been a happy man during most of my life. So have a good many of my friends who felt the same way. Some money is nice. But if you have a lot, as my father used to say, all that happens is that people want to marry you for the wrong reasons.

You don't have to own a Jaguar or Mercedes to have a good car. You don't have to own a mansion to have a nice home. You can see the same sights the rich do when traveling, you just can't go from Ritz to Ritz. As for food, you can pay $41 for the most expensive hamburger in New York at the Old Homestead, or you can choose the two that are rated best, one at DB Bistro Moderne for $29, still a bit pricey, but the other at the Union Square is $12.50, which is affordable at least now and then for most of us. And if your taste in hamburgers is as unsubtle as mine, you're perfectly happy with the two- or three-dollar variety most of the time. In other words, you don't have to be rich to enjoy.

BESIDES, WHY DO YOU WANT to join the rich guys' club anyway? Some, to be sure, are splendid fellows. But mostly they're greedy people with little regard for their duty to pay taxes or serve their country.

Consider the latter for a...