By Tom Woods
January 28, 2026
As usual, ol' Woods is the sensible voice of moderation.
I have some friends who say: politics is a waste of time, it always amounts to a bunch of broken promises (or, quite often, when the promises are kept, they're the kind of promises you wish had been broken!), and it isn't going to solve our problems.
Work on your own little world, they say, provide for your family and your close circle, and that's the best you can hope for.
Now believe me, I have plenty of sympathy for that get-out-there-and-accomplish-practical-things perspective, as should be obvious from what I write and do.
But I can't be persuaded of the forget-politics-entirely perspective. The way I look at it is this:
Hard experience has taught us to be modest, to say the least, in our expectations of what politics can accomplish in terms of making things better.
But in this day and age, if politics should go sharply against you, it can absolutely make things worse. So at the very least, it can at times be a form of self-defense.
I keep an eye on politics for that reason.
Not to mention, some of our problems, having been created by politics, can be undone only by politics.
For instance, how were Americans going to get rid of the Second Bank of the United States without politics ? In Britain how would the anti-human Corn Laws have been repealed without politics?
Now I told you I'm the sensible voice of moderation (this is such a rare place for me to be that I'm milking it for all it's worth), so here's the other side.
Beyond a certain point, there is only so much you and I can accomplish politically. Let's face it. My friends used to say that democracy is the illusion that you and I together have twice the political power of David Rockefeller.
Yet I have seen so many people put so many of their eggs in the political basket that they entirely neglect what they can be doing right now, in their capacity as private citizens, to create better and freer lives for themselves and their families.
I've seen this on the left, too. When I used to live in Kansas (don't get me started about that soul-crushing place), we liked the Columbian Theater in Wamego.
One day we received an email from them: we have a $5,000 deficit, and we don't know what to do. Lobby the State House!
I thought: what ? You're in the hole by a mere $5,000, and agitating for more money from Topeka is the only solution you can come up with ? For $5,000?
You don't have a single person or business on your mailing list, or who has helped you before, who could singlehandedly solve this problem, and would indeed be happy to do so?
You can't even hold a couple of bake sales?
The point is, there's plenty we can do right now, even if the political winds aren't blowing our way. (Hence Harry Browne's book How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.)
Tomorrow, for example, here in Woods World we're starting a four-week intensive on tax strategy, the purpose of which is to have you paying as little as possible to our overlords.
Registering for that is your one-item to-do list for today.
If you can't attend live, that's fine. You'll have access to the recordings.
I've got one of the best guys in my circles running it, and you'll be glad you did it.
Our early-bird special just expired, but LRC readers can still get it with coupon code LRC.
So click and grab our masterclass right now while you're thinking about it, and let's find some more freedom in an unfree world:
