Senator Kennedy was no saint, but one of the important things you can say about the most influential liberal force in our times is that he was better than his money.
It seems common knowledge, easily confirmed with an online search, that the Kennedy family fortune was, like so much great wealth, of dubious origins. Father Joe, son of a prosperous saloon owner, was (of all shady occupations) a stockbroker and in the liquor business, with strong hints of bootlegging. The progenitor was definitely a capitalist player. But this possibly tainted money floated an era which seems to be a transcendence of its origins. Where the family wealth came from was one thing; what has been done with it is quite another.
In a sense money is a neutral thing—just a medium, a more convenient system than bartering, a language we all have in common.
But in fact money’s reputation is far from neutral. In certain contexts money has a positive reputation. In the rags-to-riches tales of Horatio Alger, that central myth of individual initiative, money bears the virtue of the hard work and individual initiative it took to earn it. In our earliest history the Puritans believed that money is a sign of God’s blessing (and poverty of a soul in jeopardy).
More often money is a bad guy. Money itself may be an innocent system, but as we have been reminded, if we needed reminding, during the financial crisis of the past year, it gets a bad reputation from association with greed, from so often seeming at best randomly related to virtue. It’s “ill-gotten gain.” or “Filthy lucre.” (Which is why it needs “laundering”.)
One of the aspects of our system that gives money a bad rap is the inherent unfairness of inheritance. Sure, all men are created equal but some have a big headstart in the form of large fortune, as with the Kennedys. Among many of the wealthy there is a strong current of belief that mere possession of money confers virtue, that the wealthy are actually superior just because of their money. (And many would reject any suggestion that they should be ashamed of what they’ve done or what’s been done in their behalf to amass the fortune.)
Ted seemed not to be of this smug, self-satisfied sort of wealthy. On the contrary, he wore his money lightly, a good example of “noblesse oblige”, the obligation of the well-born to behave generously and responsibly (even though it’s hardly a well-established pattern among our wealthy). And this responsibility took the form of the liberal influence for which he became so famous–or infamous– championing the cause of the great majority who happened not to have inherited millions. We may not all agree with all the uses to which he put that money or with the entirety of his influence, but there seems a consensus that the main force of his life was to use that money of dubious origins for the good, specifically to correct the very unfairness of the system that helped create the family fortune to begin with.
In class struggle the wealthy are often seen as having too little in common with the disadvantaged to be trusted. The Kennedys have managed to create another perspective on their wealth: a Kennedy politician is trustworthy precisely because rich enough to be above the temptation to be interested merely in consolidating his position or amassing more wealth. I myself would prefer a genuine working class hero, but it would seem to be objectively true that on the whole the Kennedys, especially Ted, have had a genuine influence counter to their own class interests.
This form of noblesse oblige has from all indications become a firmly embedded Kennedy family value, which is one reason there is a certain logic, beyond popular sentiment, to getting another member of that family to fill Ted’s shoes: the chances seem better than with most candidates, just because of that family tradition, that a Kennedy will act responsibly and generously with a liberal agenda.
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