David Koch, the billionaire industrialist who died last week at age 79, spent his life and fortune promoting a radical libertarian vision that would have dismantled much of the modern state. As co-owner of Koch Industries, a sprawling conglomerate with annual revenues of around $110bn, he was a major funder of climate change denial and free-market thinktanks.
Koch ran for vice president in 1980 on the Libertarian ticket, advocating the abolition of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, the minimum wage, and the Environmental Protection Agency. He also called for the repeal of all campaign finance laws, arguing they interfered with the right to spend unlimited money on politics.
His company, which mines and refines petroleum, is the 17th-largest producer of greenhouse gases in the United States and the 13th-biggest water polluter, according to research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It has been responsible for hundreds of environmental, workplace safety, and labor violations, and paid nearly $300m in a wrongful death settlement after a pipeline explosion killed two teenagers.
Koch survived advanced prostate cancer for 27 years after his diagnosis in 1992, thanks to the best treatment money could buy. He subsequently funded cancer research, but critics say his concern for the disease only emerged after it affected him personally.
His legacy, according to commentators, is the spread of 'anarcho-capitalism' – a belief that all government is harmful and that society should be run by corporate monarchs. This ideology, they argue, has infected universities, Congress, and the White House, and will continue to shape American politics for years to come.
