There's been some talk recently about how the political operations bankrolled by Charles and David Koch have begun to have a deleterious effect on the various industries that have made the Koch family rich unto several generations. Of course, together, the brothers could do nothing except set a million dollars cash on fire once a year and still be able to buy congresscritters 82,000 years from now. They seem to be setting themselves up for political immortality in other ways, too, as The National Memo reports:

Anti-tax industrialist billionaires like Charles and David Koch stand to gain a lot by financing higher education programs tailored to their ideologies. Richard Fink, the Kochs' right-hand man for decades, laid out their "Structure of Social Change," the plan they devised in the late 1970s to shape society with their libertarian ideals. The plan begins with funding academic programs that favor laissez-faire economics, resulting in academic papers promoting the free market and chastising regulation and taxation. Next, think tanks they fund repackage the academic work into more easily digestible policy proposals that "citizen activists" (actually Koch-funded "social welfare" groups like Americans for Prosperity) use to pressure lawmakers.

There are very few tricks they're missing, including making sure that high school students are initiated into the wonders of the Great Market God.

Under "Readings Reflective of Common Sense" on the "Fun Readings" page of the Common Sense Economics website, one probably not-so-fun selection sticks out."The charge that sways juries and offends public sensitivities … is that greedy corporations sacrifice human lives to increase their profits. Is this charge true? Of course it is. But this isn't a criticism of corporations; rather it is a reflection of the proper functioning of a market economy. Corporations routinely sacrifice the lives of some of their customers to increase profits, and we are all better off because they do. That's right, we are lucky to live in an economy that allows corporations to increase profits by intentionally selling products less safe than could be produced. The desirability of sacrificing lives for profits may not be as comforting as milk, cookies and a bedtime story, but it follows directly from a reality we cannot wish away."

As it happens, a recent photographic competition in Australia featured a photo by a fellow named Giles Clark that happens perfectly to illustrate the above passage. From Bhopal.org:

Photo shows Sameer Hassan, 16 years of age, with his mother Wahida Bee. Sameer suffers from severe cerebral palsy with profound mental retardation. His father was exposed to Union Carbide's toxic gas at the time of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy.

The poisoning at Bhopal killed over 10,000 people on the spot. It is still killing people today. It happened 32 goddamn years ago. That's your "reflection of a market economy" right there.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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