Charles Koch Influence On Society

Charles Koch’s net worth is almost $40 billion, Giorgio Armani is worth $6.1 billion and Taylor Swift is only worth $250 million, Koch is the 9th richest person on Earth (World’s Billionaire’s List). Money and power go hand in hand; CEOs are almost always part of the wealthy upper class. Money gives people, not only their economic place in society, but also their social class, it decides the types of people they have connections with, there are exceptions to this, but income plays a major role in a person’s life. Sadly, the easiest way to have influence and authority over a society or at least a group of people is to have vasts amounts of money; of course, there are others who have power and influence without money, however people who are remembered
Most people that follow national news, or at least presidential elections know about Charles Koch’s role in American politics. The common belief, as stated before, is that Charles Koch is trying to buy America one politician at a time (Dickinson). Senator Harry Reid has publicly said that he also believes the Koch brothers are trying to buy America, he has also called Koch “un-American as anyone I can imagine” (Blake). A lobbyist is a person, one with a corporate identity, who persuades government officials to enact legislation that would benefit their corporation; although this definition sounds extremely alarming, anybody who petitions the government or voices their opinion personally to any government official is considered a lobbyist (“What’s a Lobbyist?”). Still, Charles Koch is not a regular citizen, instead he is a an intimidating political figure due to his power from his vasts amounts of inherited money. Others argue that the media focuses too much on the amount of money Charles spends on political campaigns and not enough on other expenses he makes, like the $66.7 million he has donated to cancer research along with his brother (Dodds). Nobody is saying that donating to cancer research is a bad thing, Koch should focus his money on things that matter and can really change lives like illnesses but this does not give him a right to change elections. Others like to point out that sometimes money doesn’t make a difference at all, like for the 2012 presidential election. Americans for Prosperity donated $36.7 million to the presidential election, 95% being against Obama, yet still Mitt Romney lost (Gilson). This could be explained by it being Obama’s reelection, unless a president was detrimental to the country, most of the time a president is reelected for his second term; this could’ve played out very