He's a GOOD GUY After All

Using philanthropy to change your reputation is a practice as old as America itself. Just ask George Peabody.

- MICHAEL GROSS

Philanthropy may be a cornerstone of the fortress inhabited by America's ruling class, but it's also its first line of defense. Giving away money burnishes reputations by laundering imperfect pasts.

Nowadays, strivers wrap themselves in the cloak of philanthropy even if all they do is buy a gala table. But unlike spontaneous charity, philanthropy is a well-thought-out practice designed to do long-term good while removing the stains all too often acquired in the accumulation and retention of wealth.

At some point in our history, the aristocratic European notion of noblesse oblige became a democratic duty for Americans of a certain class, just as the seeds of freedom, reason, and individualism planted by the Protestant Reformation and French Enlightenment bore fruit here in the WASP elite.

Consider the life of George Peabody, a sixth generation American who remade his image, transforming himself from grasping miser into model humanitarian. Never heard of him? Well, listen closely, because you still may be following in his footsteps.

George Peabody started with almost nothing, launched himself into the financial stratosphere with a single-minded devotion to making money, and then, having achieved great wealth, gave it all away. In between he was a pioneer of the awful yet awesome self-absorption that would, within a century, be seen as a defining trait of the American WASP. But Peabody demonstrated a larger truth: While a flaw can seem universal, individuals can and do rise above it.