In what I plan to be an on-going series, I will ask questions or make statements that it seems society does not want us to ask or say. I don’t have the answers for every one of them, but I think it is important to at least ask the questions anyway and then maybe we’ll find the answers together.

“When is Enough Enough?”

With the US mid-term elections coming up in less than a week, the Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been spending large amounts of money just as they have in every election cycle since the Supreme Court opened up a spigot of dark money in its decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission of 2010. Charles and David Koch spend tens of millions of dollars every election to try to elect politicians who will give Koch Industries (which the brothers inherited, by the way) a free hand to make even more money than they already do. The Kochs doing so much work in order to make more money than they already have seems ridiculous when one considers that each Koch brother independent of the other has over $40 billion. The question I want to ask – but that the media, society, the wealthy, and many politicians don’t seem to want us to ask – is: when is enough wealth enough?

We are raised in this country being taught through school that Capitalism is absolutely good and Socialism is absolutely bad, but that doesn’t go far enough for many in our country; many in the Republican Party have become devoted followers of Ayn Rand and her economic theories. Rand held that there is a moral good in selfishness and greed and that to even question such greed is to invite the benign corporations and rich individuals to leave America to find a home where they are not so underappreciated. With Ayn Rand as their guiding star, many wealthy Conservatives have adopted a self-righteous posture and treat any question or criticism that is posed to them as heresy and a threat to American supremacy.

So why do the Kochs keep spending so much money to elect friendly politicians when they need for absolutely nothing? There is nothing they cannot buy if they desire it, so their attempt to buy the government to make sure Koch Industries can be even more profitable is disgustingly gluttonous. At what dollar amount does it become socially distasteful for an individual or a corporation to just keep piling up as much money and influence as possible? When does greed become unattractive and unworthy of emulation? We as a society have the right to ask these questions even if they scare some in our nation who immediately brand any criticism of the accumulation of wealth as, ‘class warfare,’ and an example of treacherous Socialism. There is no easy answer for how we as a society can deal with the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of so few, but the only way to actually find a solution to this very real problem is to admit it exists, call out greed for what it is, and teach our children to value other things besides just money.