David Koch was one of four sons borne to Fred Koch, an engineer who made his fortune in oil refining. Koch Sr helped build refineries in Nazi Germany (which he really liked) and Stalinist Russia (which he really didn’t like). David Koch, along with his brother Charles, followed eagerly in his footsteps: in business (at Koch Chemical Technology and Koch Engineering) and in political views. David (and his brother) were perhaps the most important and influential figures in right-wing US politics for some 25 years, funding a multitude of NGOs, lobbyists and pressure groups dedicated to pushing a strictly Hayekian worldview: libertarianism, libertarianism, libertarianism. The Cato Institute was a Koch project, as was Americans for Prosperity – the organisational arm of the so-called Tea Party movement. They weren’t big fans of Barack Obama either, and at the last three elections spent around $1 billion a cycle funding Republican candidates to take down BHO and, later, Hillary Clinton. One person who they didn’t give any money to, however, was Donald Trump: in an ironic twist, the Tea Party gave way to Trump’s protectionist trade policies, anathema to the Kochs and their love of the free market. Indeed, Casino Don called them “a total joke in Republican circles and highly overrated”. A beautiful example of reaping entirely what you sow.
David Koch
May 3, 1940 – August 23, 2019
Died aged 79 (Three picks)