{"id":1029,"date":"2018-10-23T19:24:52","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T00:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/wordpress\/almostclassical\/?p=1029"},"modified":"2025-01-11T16:53:02","modified_gmt":"2025-01-11T22:53:02","slug":"confessions-of-a-koch-backed-fake-sorry-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/2018\/10\/23\/confessions-of-a-koch-backed-fake-sorry-no\/","title":{"rendered":"Confessions of a Koch-Backed Fake&#8230; Sorry, No"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A constant annoyance on social media is the constant, and generally unprovoked, attacks on \u201clibertarians\u201d who apparently belong to a cabal ready to destroy the United States.\u00a0With some regularity I receive messages accusing me of being a \u201cKoch-funded fake\u201d or attributing some nefarious backing to my various projects.\u00a0I\u2019ve posted on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/wordpress\/almostclassical\/2017\/08\/05\/democracy-in-chains-and-inter-disciplinary-problems\/\"><i>Democracy in Chains<\/i>\u00a0by Historian Nancy MacLean<\/a> and other conspiracy theories of the libertarian movement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conspiracy theorists won\u2019t believe this anyway, but I\u2019m not a Koch-backed fake.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My publishers aren\u2019t Koch-backed, either (<a href=\"https:\/\/parlorpress.com\">Parlor Press<\/a>, DMI Agency). Trust me, there\u2019s little to no chance that the Proceedings of Computers and Writing was Koch-funded, either, though we did have a conference at George Mason University a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;Koch Brothers\u201d are like George Soros, a conveniently wealthy boogeyman for politicians and talking heads. What\u2019s more shocking and worrisome to me are those conspiracy promoters who claim the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/american-politics\/trump-attacks-koch-brothers-with-antisemitic-dog-whistle-563841\">Kochs and Soros are all part of a Jewish plot<\/a> to control global finances. On the left, the Koch family gets <a href=\"https:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/jewish\/koch-brothers-father-helped-build-major-nazi-oil-refinery-1.5389749\">linked to Hitler<\/a>. On the right, people claim Soros is also an anti-Semite.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conspiracies are never consistent.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m no longer stunned when I ask someone using the \u201cKoch Brothers\u201d to name the brothers and they cannot. There were four Koch brothers, two of whom are associated with libertarian and fiscally conservative politics. In order of birth, the Koch brothers were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Frederick R. Koch (1933\u20132020): Collector of things<\/li>\n<li>Charles G. Koch (born 1935): CEO of Koch Industries<\/li>\n<li>David H. Koch (1940\u20132019): Former Executive Vice-President of Koch Industries<\/li>\n<li>William (Bill) Koch (born 1940): Businessman, sailor, and another collector of things<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Frederick Koch liked books. He funded a lot of rare book collections. Good for him. He wasn\u2019t actively involved in politics and didn\u2019t get along well with Charles or David. Bill loves sailing and even won the America\u2019s Cup in 1992. Bill invested in alternative energy and technology, but his passions are sailing and wine according to most books and articles I\u2019ve read.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, Bill donates to moderate Republicans, but it is Charles and David who became <strong>THE Koch Brothers<\/strong>. (Their father Fred was Goldwater Republican and radical John Birch Society supporter. He was, to be kind, a dangerous wingnut.)<\/p>\n<p>Charles Koch is the one most closely associated with political organizations. He\u2019s a true believer in markets, a passionate advocate for personal freedoms. He\u2019s also known for conflicts with the organizations he helped found or support. Famously, the mercurial Charles Koch had to settle a dispute with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2012\/06\/cato-koch-brothers-settle-ownership-fight-077809\">Cato Institute in 2012<\/a>, which removed him and his brother David from the organization\u2019s non-profit ownership.<\/p>\n<p>If you listen to Charles, there\u2019s little doubt he fits some of the caricatures of libertarians. He\u2019s for drug decriminalization, criminal justice reform, and deep cuts to military spending. He\u2019s also anti-tax, anti-regulation, and has a faith in markets most economists long ago abandoned for a more nuanced view of open economies.<\/p>\n<p>Charles is deeply Anti-Trump and has said he believes the United States needs to address its racist past. I&#8217;ll give him some credit for those views, especially since his father was a racist. (It should also be noted, Charles too often donated to Republicans willing to play into Nixon&#8217;s Southern Strategy because those Republicans were also perceived as pro-market and pro-business.)<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t confuse Charles for today&#8217;s &#8220;movement conservative&#8221; politicians. He&#8217;s still a libertarian (small-l), not a social conservative. He&#8217;s also convinced climate change isn&#8217;t human-caused, or at best exaggerated. Charles believes, and not merely because he benefits from carbon extraction. He fights regulation of carbon industries, while I and many left-libertarians consider climate change a serious threat to our planet.<\/p>\n<p>I doubt I\u2019d get along with Charles Koch, but I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m basing that solely on what others have said about his personality. He is a man who fought two brothers in court for decades, eventually buying out his own family to control Koch Industries. David, it seems, was comfortable in the shadow of Charles, unlike Frederick and Bill.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, if Charles Koch offered the funding to create a non-profit entity to support what I do, I\u2019d accept the money. Just as I\u2019d accept the money from George Soros, Elan Musk, or anyone else. I\u2019m not going to change what I believe, so I\u2019d assume any supporters expect me to keep writing what I\u2019m writing and saying what I\u2019m saying.<\/p>\n<p>As my wife, friends, and colleagues can attest, I\u2019m pretty inflexible after I\u2019ve researched something and reached a conclusion. My views don\u2019t change no matter where I teach or in which department \u00a0I am based. That\u2019s not always popular, either.<\/p>\n<p>David was a True Believer in Austrian economics and a Libertarian Party candidate for president in 1980. Yet, he was never as passionate about politics as Charles.<\/p>\n<p>I do admire David Koch\u2019s legacy and believe he\u2019s no worse (or better) than Andrew Carnegie. The <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/David_Koch#Philanthropy\">philanthropy of David Koch<\/a> continues to support many places I consider special. Yes, he was one of the richest men in the United States, and also one of the top philanthropists.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Arts<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$100\u00a0million to renovate the New York State Theater in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, now known as David H. Koch Theater.<\/li>\n<li>$10\u00a0million to renovate the fountains outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.<\/li>\n<li>$6 million to the American Ballet Theatre<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Education<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$18.6\u00a0million to WGBH Educational Foundation, including $10\u00a0million to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) show Nova.<\/li>\n<li>$35\u00a0million to the Smithsonian to build a new dinosaur exhibition hall at the National Museum of Natural History.<\/li>\n<li>$20\u00a0million gift to the American Museum of Natural History, creating the David H. Koch Dinosaur Wing.<\/li>\n<li>$15\u00a0million to the National Museum of Natural History to create the new David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Medical research<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$395\u00a0million to medical research causes and institutions, primarily on a quest to treat and cure cancers.<\/li>\n<li>$41\u00a0million to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, including $5\u00a0million to a collaborative project in the field of nanotechnology.<\/li>\n<li>$20\u00a0million to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore for cancer research, the David H. Koch Cancer Research Building.<\/li>\n<li>$100\u00a0million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.<\/li>\n<li>$25\u00a0million to the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, the David Koch Center for Applied Research in Genitourinary Cancers<\/li>\n<li>$5\u00a0million to the House Ear Institute, in Los Angeles, to create a center for hearing restoration.<\/li>\n<li>$25\u00a0million to the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.<\/li>\n<li>$100\u00a0million to NewYork\u2013Presbyterian Hospital, the largest philanthropic donation in its history.<\/li>\n<li>$150\u00a0million to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City to build the David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>If you learn from NOVA, if you have visited the Smithsonian, or if you enjoy the American Ballet, David Koch helped support those wonderful resources. He was a believer in public broadcasting, contrary to perceptions of what a libertarian is. He even made sure his funds were used to counter creationism with a special exhibit on human evolution at the National Museum of Natural History. My oldest daughter and I love that exhibit.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, if there\u2019s one thing David Koch did that matters most, it is his support of cancer research. Much of his estate continues to benefit cancer research centers across the United States.<\/p>\n<p>I also admire George Soros\u2026 and dislike some of his choices, too. I don\u2019t admire how he has made his fortune, but I admire that he invests money in what he believes. He doesn\u2019t shy away from his ideals.<\/p>\n<p>We should debate ideas, but it is so much easier to worry about Jewish Nazis. As if that makes any sense at all.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A constant annoyance on social media is the constant, and generally unprovoked, attacks on \u201clibertarians\u201d who apparently belong to a cabal ready to destroy the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"iawp_total_views":6,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,34,8],"tags":[186,187,188,189,190,191,114,192],"class_list":["post-1029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-econ","category-media","category-politics","tag-andrew-carnegie","tag-anti-libertarian","tag-charles-koch","tag-david-koch","tag-george-soros","tag-koch-brothers","tag-libertarian","tag-nancy-maclean","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/03\/AC_Banner_Gray_1200x630.png?fit=1200%2C630&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfivL7-gB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1399,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions\/1399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/almostclassical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}