Dear Charles Koch,
I don’t know you any better than you know Bernie Sanders, but I very much appreciate your recent effort in a Washington Post op-ed to publicly identify common ground with him about our “political and economic system that is often rigged to help the privileged few at the expense of everyone else.” I would like to attempt the same with you.
Many who share my political views will call you a hypocrite or worse, but as someone who sees daily attacks against my family that I view as slanderous, I have always been more inclined to allow that you are principally motivated by what you believe to be in the public interest, even if it often coincides with your financial interest.
I was thrilled to see you diagnose the cronyism and corruption of our government as a principal motivation of yours. For too long, too many Republicans have been unwilling to acknowledge that the power of moneyed interests is a cause for concern. Democrats, for their part, have been too quick to point their fingers only at you and other mega-donors, while unwilling to address the heart of the problem: the much smaller sums used by lobbyists and special interests to buy influence with incumbents of both parties.
The sad truth is that our politics is as much divided between insiders and outsiders as it is between left and right. Those with money and relationships, like you and me, are on the inside, while everyday Americans find themselves increasingly left out. It’s refreshing to see you acknowledge this.
You are correct that the size and scope of the government create a target for corruption. It is likely also true that the ability to extract contributions from those being regulated creates an incentive for lawmakers to increase regulation. Where most people see bribery, you see extortion; the result is often the same.
Sadly, though, I fear the differences in our solutions leave us a long way from joining Bernie in a kumbaya chorus. Your solution to these problems is to dismantle the government altogether. You view the state as the enemy, a tyrant that curtails liberty, and believe that we would be better off without most of it.
I have always found your position to be fundamentally at odds with the founding principles of our democracy. Our first freedom, before we could have freedom from the government, was the freedom to form the government. That is why our Constitution begins with the words “We the people.” That idea of popular sovereignty was the true political innovation and the reason our government is the only truly legitimate forum for national, collective decisions.
The idea that we might be safer and better off by radically diminishing government’s ability to make and enforce laws also seems to be in conflict with the facts. The history of corporate behavior when constrained only by ethical norms but not by legal requirement is a deadly one, from the infamous Chevy Corvair, to the deliberate efforts of tobacco companies to target children, to the PCBs that still pollute our waters 40 years after they were banned. I’m glad that I can raise my children in a world where our government, in the exercise of our sovereign authority, helps protect from those dangers where no other power can.
And the “free markets” that we both admire do not exist without a government to protect them. We too often neglect the fact that the biggest threat to competitive markets is businesses. I’m confident that as a businessman you would much prefer a monopoly achieved by any means necessary to a competitive market. Government stands to protect us from those means.
That is why I spend my time and effort on a different project — that of enhancing the quality and integrity of democratic governance — so that the decisions that emerge from our government can have the legitimacy they deserve.
That means ensuring that every American is enfranchised and empowered to vote free of unnecessary obstacles. It means upending the way our campaigns are financed, through citizen funding that gives every voter the opportunity for meaningful participation regardless of his or her financial status. And it means enhancing competition in our elections by breaking the pattern of partisan gerrymandering and opening up the ballot to more candidates.
Americans who are outside the political elite understand all too well the problems of crony capitalism and corporate welfare. Indeed, there are few things they agree about more. Poll after poll shows that — regardless of political affiliation — Americans believe their democracy is broken, that the rich and powerful have too much influence, and that they are being left out and left behind.
I cannot and would not defend all government action. There are many areas where I believe the government is not the best equipped to solve a problem, and many others where the solutions are based more on wishful thinking than on evidence.
Even so, you and I will surely continue to disagree on the appropriate role of government. But might we yet agree that in whatever actions it takes, our government should be serving the citizens who are the sovereign source of its legitimacy, rather than special interests with access unavailable to most Americans?
That is the promise of our American democracy, and without it we are lost.
