Charles Koch, however, favored neither taxes nor charity. As he explained in a speech in 1999, “I agree with the 12th century philosopher, Maimonides, who defined the highest form of charity as dispensing with charity altogether, by enabling your fellow humans to have the wherewithal to earn their own living.” But according to the cultural critic and Jewish scholar Leon Wieseltier, who has taught several university courses on Maimonides, “This is false and tendentious and idiotic.” He explains, “Maimonides did indeed prize the sort of charity that made its recipient more self-reliant, but he
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