Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

by Jane Mayer

Coppin suggests that Charles harbored a hatred of the government so intense it could only be truly understood as an extension of his childhood conflicts with authority. From his earliest years, he writes, Charles’s goal was to achieve total control. “He did not escape his father’s authority until his father died,” he notes. After that, Charles went to great lengths to ensure that neither his brothers nor anyone else could challenge his personal control of the family company. Later clashes with unionized workers at the Pine Bend Refinery and with the expanding regulatory state strengthened his resolve. “Only the governments and the courts remained as sources of authority,” Coppin writes, and if enacted, Charles’s “libertarian policies would eliminate these.”