At Kennedy School, Rep. Joe Kennedy III takes aim at ‘shareholder-first’ mentality
Speaking at Harvard Kennedy School, U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D., Mass.) called Monday for a new national economic agenda based on “moral capitalism” that addresses the needs of embattled workers. In recent months, Kennedy has been pushing for a fresh economic sensibility. Addressing a full house at the John T. Dunlop Forum on the topic of “Building a Moral Capitalism,” he argued that the recent federal government shutdown represented capitalism at its least moral. “For 35 days, the president of the United States told 800,000 federal employees to make do without their paychecks,” said Kennedy, a 2009 graduate of Harvard Law School. “Full-time workers lined up at soup kitchens; they begged for acts of mercy at their banks. Air traffic controllers put in 10-hour shifts and then went off and worked for Uber. Workers who served government meals are still not guaranteed one cent of the pay they missed. He added, “Beneath it...