David Koch, via Wikicommons
WC’s sister-in-law might have put it best, “Somewhere out there, a poor camel is trying to squeeze through the eye of a needle.” Matthew 19:24 if your biblical skills are rusty.
David Koch, whose net worth has been estimated to be in the range of $50 billion, tried to mitigate his true legacy by making charitable gifts – for a tax deduction, of course – of a small fraction of his net worth. A small fraction of such a huge net worth is quite a large amount of money. Koch’s charitable donations may have been as much as $500 million. Some folks have been praising that, calling it his legacy. It’s about one percent of his $50 billion net worth. One percent. WC can’t speak for others, but WC’s expectation for billionaire redemption is a lot higher than that.
David Koch’s true legacy has two parts, both motivated by pure greed. He and his brother Charles have corrupted American politics with nearly unlimited money. They helped fund Citizens United, the plaintiff nonprofit that successfully challenged statutory campaign spending limits. Once the limits were off, David Koch and his older brother, Charles, took full advantage of it, pouring tens of millions of dollars into a spooky network of far right causes, foundations and “think tanks.”1 WC recommends Jane Mayer’s excellent Dark Money for the full story. That money has been used very successfully to lobby Congress and regulators to reduce safety regulations and lower taxes. All with a view to making extremely wealthy men wealthier still. The fact that money has corrupted the American political system is, for the Koch brothers, an immaterial side effect of the goal of making themselves richer still.
The second part of Koch’s legacy is anthropogenic climate change. Koch Industries, the second largest privately held business in the United States, makes most of its money out of oil and gas. Refineries, pipelines, plastic plants, chemical plants; it’s a vast conglomerate but the big profit margins are in fossil fuels. The Koch brothers early on recognized that seriously addressing anthropogenic climate change would cut deeply into profits, and fought any effort to limit fossil fuel emissions with lies, distortions, sleazy propaganda and immense amounts of money. The public uncertainty today about the reality of climate change is largely a consequence of the Koch brothers efforts to protect their profits. The refusal of large blocks of elected officials to timely and appropriately address the existential crisis is to a great extent the result of the Koch brothers protecting their profits by buying those politicians.
We, our children and our grandchildren will live with the consequences of the Koch brothers unrelenting, unrestrained and unprincipled greed. That greed has gravely undermined our government and jeopardized human survival on the planet.
Admittedly, Charles Koch, the older brother, is even worse. But the greed, the utterly self-centered goal of achieving an obscene amount of money no matter the consequences is the true legacy of David Koch.
So, no, WC does not wish David Koch’s family well. WC does not credit David Koch for his one pecrent for charity. WC hopes that David Koch is rotting in the fires of the Christian Hell WC doesn’t believe in. And if WC ever learns where David Koch is buried he will, at the very least, spit on his grave.
Do not rest in peace, David Koch. Your legacy is ashes and disaster.
- Only in America do we call ultra right, libertarian training camps “think tanks.” In the rest of the world, they are called political training camps, where folks who actually engaged in critical thinking are summarily drummed out. ↩
Wickersham's Conscience 
A spitting mecca is stil too little satisfaction for all the monstrosities this family has perpetuated on the US and the world. May the world remember them for what they are, with all their cohorts.
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Excellent post. It’s hard not to despair about the future with people like David Koch loose in the world.
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