Mr. Richman has a point, one libertarians need to learn to articulate. The more power government has, the more desperate people are to control that power.
by
Sheldon Richman
Sep 19, 2025
For at least 200 years, classical liberals (aka libertarians) have warned that the more power the government wields, the greater the lengths people will go to get their hands on it before their ideological opponents do.
This is not rocket science, yet resistance to the implications endures. If politicians and bureaucrats can readily confiscate wealth from its producers and distribute it to others, or if they can grant privileges to those they favor and impose restrictions on those they don’t, you can bet that individuals and groups will work...
I remember a scene from Everybody Hates Chris where Chris takes shelter in the only white guy's apartment in the whole neighborhood, because there is a gang-war going on outside. Reluctantly, the old white guy agrees not to force him back out on the street to be shot, but he holds him at gunpoint and forces him to turn his pockets out. Chris protests with a look like, "Seriously? You think I'm here to rob you?" and the old man urges him on, "Go on, turn your pockets out. I don't know how Houdini did it and I don't know how you guys do it." Of course, there is some old-fashioned racism there, but what I find particularly insightful about this quote is that it shows the nature of political power ... I have no idea how Houdini did his tricks... and I have no idea how Democrats and Republicans do their tricks. But I also don't care, and it doesn't really matter, they simply need to be held at gunpoint and forced to turn their pockets out. Start with shuttering the Federal Reserve and prohibiting fractional reserves by Amendment, not merely "because inflation", and all the attendant bribery and economic devastation, but more importantly because
these tools permit boundless accounting trickery, and that is their true,
highest purpose. If I can always take out another loan with monopoly money, then I can play a never-ending shell game where the money is always wherever you aren't looking. And if there is no money-accounting, there is no accounting of any kind, just the show of it.
The point is, when you create the Ring of Sauron, not only will it attract the power-players you know about and understand, it's going to attract the kind of people whose skills you never imagined could exist, and they are going to seize power by means you never even considered possible. In the end, Houdini will have the Ring, and you will have no idea how he did it. And since there is no possibility of accounting/auditing any of this, because our money is literally made out of rubber, you will
never be able to pick the manacles that Houdini himself has placed on your wrists....
