Summary

The Kochtopus was the name given to the enormous “vertically and horizontally integrated” strategy Charles Koch used to infuse anti-regulatory, free-market economic principles into mainstream political discourse (142). Charles Koch and his political lieutenant, Richard Fink, ran their philanthropic endeavors with the mechanical efficiency of engineers. This strategy began with an in-house lobbying operation centered in Washington, D.C., founded on the idea that corporate America was under attack by the existing political establishment. Koch and Fink’s plan was three-tiered, requiring a merger of “all forms of political spending – campaign, lobbying, and philanthropic – into one investment aimed at paying huge future dividends to the donors” (145).

In David Koch’s words, their strategy was to “minimize the role of government and to maximize the role of the private economy,” which they accomplished through their wide-spanning investments across academia, think tanks, and lobbying...