<P> The American dream regarding home ownership had little resonance before the 1980s . In the 1980s, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher worked to create a similar dream, by selling public - housing units to their tenants . Her Conservative Party called for more home ownership: "HOMES OF OUR OWN: To most people ownership means first and foremost a home of their own...We should like in time to improve on existing legislation with a realistic grants scheme to assist first - time buyers of cheaper homes ." Guest calls this Thatcher's approach to the American Dream . Knights and McCabe argue that, "a reflection and reinforcement of the American Dream has been the emphasis on individualism as extolled by Margaret Thatcher and epitomized by the' enterprise' culture ." </P> <P> Since the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union in 1991, the American Dream has fascinated Russians . The first post-Communist leader Boris Yeltsin embraced the "American way" and teamed up with Harvard University free market economists Jeffrey Sachs and Robert Allison to give Russia economic shock therapy in the 1990s . The newly independent Russian media idealized America and endorsed shock therapy for the economy . In 2008 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev lamented the fact that 77% of Russia's 142 million people live "cooped up" in apartment buildings . In 2010 his administration announced a plan for widespread home ownership: "Call it the Russian dream", said Alexander Braverman, the Director of the Federal Fund for the Promotion of Housing Construction Development . Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, worried about his nation's very low birth rate, said he hoped home ownership will inspire Russians "to have more babies". </P> <P> The Chinese Dream describes a set of ideals in the People's Republic of China . It is used by journalists, government officials and activists to describe the aspiration of individual self - improvement in Chinese society . Although the phrase has been used previously by Western journalists and scholars, a translation of a New York Times article written by the American journalist Thomas Friedman, "China Needs Its Own Dream", has been credited with popularizing the concept in China . He attributes the term to Peggy Liu and the environmental NGO JUCCCE's China Dream project, which defines the Chinese Dream as sustainable development . In 2013 the President of the PRC Xi Jinping began promoting the phrase as a slogan, leading to its widespread use in the Chinese media . </P> <P> The concept of Chinese Dream is very similar to the idea of "American Dream". It stresses entrepreneurship and glorifies a generation of self - made men and women in post-reform China . Such as those rural immigrates who moved to the urban centers and achieve magnificent improvement in terms of their living standards, and social life . Chinese Dream can be interpreted as the collective consciousness of Chinese people during the era of social transformation and economic progress . The main difference is that the American Dream is an already existing phenomenon while the Chinese Dream is being built and popularised fairly recently . </P>

Where did the phrase the american dream come from