Against Nepotism

As a Floridian, I have to say that the reign of Jeb Bush was not all that bad for the state (ok, fine there was the whole Terry Schiavo thing as well as massive budget cuts in education and the almost-passing of a voucher program). Maybe I'm just too busy comparing him to his brother, who would make Michael Brown seem competent.

Also, it can only be nepotism if the positions are appointed. If somebody uses their popular name to win office, it's not much different than someone like Ronald Reagan, The Governator (like I can spell that last name), or Jesse Ventura using their own popularity to win office. (or even Al Franken to a lesser degree fingers crossed). At least with someone like a Jeb Bush or a Caroline Kennedy, we have a better idea of how they will really act in office.

Middle Ages in America: the cases of Caroline Kennedy and Rod Blagojevich

Vladimir Shlapentokh

In the last months of 2008, it looked like the Middle Ages had encroached American life. The developments surrounding two vacancies in the Senate (New York and Illinois) suggest the necessity of looking at a textbook on the European Middle Ages. Indeed, the battle around the appointment of a Senate seat in New York reminds us clearly of the struggle between major aristocratic families in France or England. Indeed, in this battle the Kennedy, Cuomo and Clintons Clans take part. It is necessary to add New York Governor David Paterson, who gained his position with the help of the network of his father Basil Patterson, a powerful New York politician. Newly elected President Barak Obama is also somewhat enmeshed in the struggle, given his obligation to those who helped him in the election campaign.

From the very beginning of the choice of "candidates for the seat in the senate," Caroline Kennedy became a favorite.Without a record as a successful politician (she has not held any position, elected or otherwise) and without elaborating her own political program, she insisted, when asked why she wants to be a senator, "I wouldn't be here if I didn't think I would be the best." She substantiated her claim to be "the best" by her "celebrity" and her "political connections." A host of politicians who were in a hurry to support Mrs. Kennedy used her origin as their major argument. The most striking thing is, however, not so much Mrs. Kennedy's claim to be one of 100 senators in the United States, but the public's general acceptance that her wishes are "normal" and "legitimate." Maureen Dowd, a leading the New York Times columnist, was even more enthusiastic than the editorial board of her newspaper. She praised "the magic capital" of Caroline which will help her "to take care of New York in this time of economic distress." It will also help her to direct the Congress, which "desperately needs fresh faces and new perspectives, an infusion of class, intelligence and guts."

Meanwhile, the position of the American dignitaries and media about the candidacy of Caroline Kennedy jars with the fundamentals of American political order, as it was created by the founding fathers of this country, a deeply democratic nation. They were building a new society as an antipode to feudal Europe, given its nobility. The Constitution mentioned the nobility only in a negative sense, banning the endowment of the title of nobility to anyone. The Federalist Papers brim with contempt for the "spirit of clanship" and for "barons and nobles."

The case with Rod R. Blagojevich, governor of Illinois, was probably an even stronger reminder to Americans of the Middle Ages. Then the buying and selling of offices was a normal practice. As officially stated, Blagojevich was arrested on Dec. 9, 2008 on federal corruption charges. Prosecutors said that Blagojevich had conspired to profit from his authority to appoint a successor to Barack Obama, who resigned his Senate seat after being elected president. Blagojevich's case was essentially not unique, even if it happened to be a particularly arrant example.

How can we explain these cases that happened not in fourteenth-century France, but in the United States in the twenty-first century? The discussion of the medieval heritage of contemporary England or France makes some--even if not much--sense, given the fact that these countries have been behind them many centuries of feudal history. However, to talk about the impact of the Middle Ages on the American society is meaningless, because everybody knows that the United States, unlike European countries, did not have the feudal stage in its history. Still, we can talk about both cases as examples of feudal (or oligarchic) elements in American society. The point is that feudal developments are in no way the specific characteristics of only the European Middle Ages. We find them in any society where private political power, along with a network of clientele, is exploited by the "few," if to use Aristotle's famous definition of oligarchy, while government cannot or does not wish to protect the law and the public interest. In fact, we encounter feudal tendencies also in contemporary American society when the egotistical interests of the "few" challenge the fundamentals of this country, its democratic principles, and its rules of honest competition, economic and political.

The founders of this country were not idealists or romantics. Alexander Hamilton had no illusions about human nature when he wrote in the Federalist Papers that "supposition of universal venality in human nature is little less an error in political reasoning, than the supposition of universal rectitude." He knew, in particular, how often the merits of people are ignored in "appointing to offices" and how much this process is influenced by "the private and party likings and dislikes, partialities and antipathies, attachments and animosities."

Only merit, and not one's origin or big money, should be the basis for selecting people for high positions in society. Of course, in real life, the merit principle is violated everywhere, in government and academia, in media and economy. Feudal elements have the ability to reproduce themselves over decades, as we saw in Chicago and other American cities, where political bosses, like medieval barons, do what they want in order to perpetuate their power and increase their wealth. Feudal elements, like dangerous microbes with their capacity for reproduction, can coexist with the healthy parts of the social body for a long time. The citizens of society may not even feel how dangerous they are for the social organism as they expand. Americans should beware of feudal tendencies in their society and hold them in check.

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