Tell us about your writing experience:
In the early 1970s, about the time radio talk programs were becoming popular, I was a stockbroker in Boston. One of the stations there had a fine afternoon talk show host. I called him every Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. to talk about money matters and economics. On one of my calls, the host said, “Wait a minute. I received a letter about you.” He found the letter and read it on the air. It was from a student, who wrote, “Archie’s explanations of economics are clearer than those of my professors at Harvard.”
Having always had an affinity for writing, I sent something I’d written to a PhD in English. She thought it was excellent and suggested that I become a newspaper columnist.
Being in the investment business, I sent weekly columns on money matters to a local paper which published them without pay. I also sent them to my stepdaughter’s English teacher. I wanted to improve my writing, and he wanted to learn about money. At first, he returned the columns covered with red marks. Gradually, the red marks disappeared, and I went national, publishing weekly columns, “Richards on Money Matters” in some eleven papers across the country.
I’ve always been a libertarian. After seven years of columns about money, it seemed clear that the fabric of American life was deteriorating. I sent periodic columns about this to friends and to the Concord (NH) Monitor, which published almost all of them as letters to the editor.
For McGraw-Hill, I wrote “Understanding Exchange-Traded Funds.” For Defiance Press & Publishing, Conroe, TX, “I wrote America’s Governments, Enemies of the Poor” in 2020 and “America’s Bankruptcy Approaches” in 2021. In 2022, the Mises Institute published my article, “A Renewed Libertarian America.”
How Did You Come Up with the Title of Your Book?
Ha! I didn’t. My original title was “Government is Too Big and Too Powerful.” It took a friend, who was once in advertising, about half a second to come up with a better title: “Shrink Government: It’s Too Big!”
What Time of Day Do You Usually Write?
I seldom write. Mostly, I rewrite, at all different times of the day. The most productive times are just before I go to sleep, when I’m tired, and just after I wake up, when I’m fresh.
Archie’s Writing Tips for Non-Fiction Authors:
Enable your readers to reconstruct in their minds the thoughts, ideas, and visions you have in yours. Be definite. Paint pictures. Describe details that matter and be crystal clear. Do not require readers to read your mind.
Make the writing seamless, with no breaks in understanding. Maintain an unbroken line of thought, with each idea following comfortably from the last.
Do not rely on the reader’s memory. If you present an acronym whose meaning some readers may not know, define it immediately. If you use it again later, define it again. Whatever’s not self-explanatory, explain or omit it.
Convey a maximum of meaning with a minimum of words.
Whether in a phrase or a sentence, the most important idea usually belongs at the end. The second-most important idea belongs at the beginning. To enable this, make the verb either active or passive.
For example, here’s a statement with an active verb: “I treat reader letters confidentially.” The most important word, “confidentially,” is properly placed at the end. The second most important, “reader letters,” does not belong in the middle; it belongs at the beginning. “I” is irrelevant. The statement thus works best with a passive verb: “Reader letters are treated confidentially.”
Use pithy verbs. Thesauruses and dictionaries contain a richness of words that people know the meanings of but do not use. Use them.
Keep yourself out of your stories. Except with a memoir, it’s not about you: It’s about your thoughts and ideas. The key objective is to get your ideas, internalized, into the reader’s head.
Be clear about things, time, and space. Describe in sequence events that occur in sequence. Be specific. Avoid “when” if you mean “after.” Avoid “but” if you mean “except.” Keep things straight.
Write by rewriting. Omit unnecessary words ruthlessly.
Good writing differs from spoken language. It’s unnatural.
At the root of writing lies the spoken language. Keep imagining how your writing sounds. Read your work out loud before publishing.
Modifiers, like “they” or “it,” should be placed near the item being modified.
Keep paragraphs short.
Minimize the use of “be” words, including am, was, and were. Replace “I am sending,” with “I enclose.” Replace “was instrumental in organizing” with “helped organize.”
Put statements in positive form. Instead of, “He was not often on time,” write “He usually came in late.”
Write predominantly with nouns and verbs. Be sparing of adjectives and adverbs.
Spoken English includes slight delays. Since you’re not standing at the reader’s side to illustrate, point to the delays with commas. They’re essential.
Remember that your reader can stop reading your writing any time with no trouble at all. Try to prevent this.
Read the First Chapter of Shrink Government
Chapter 1
CORPORATE MANAGERS
Unfortunately, current managers of big American companies are actively seeking government’s help in crowding out their smaller competitors. They may expect that they and top government officials will walk arm in arm toward ever greater powers and profits.
The managers may be in for a surprise. America is closer to a totalitarian government than most people think. Dictators dislike prominent and talented people who disagree with them. The managers of big American corporations may find themselves disappearing from the earth.
Naah. Can’t happen. The Constitution won’t allow it.
Dream on, friend, dream on.
ARMED TO THE TEETH
In 1832, John Marshall, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, rendered a judicial opinion with which President Andrew Jackson disagreed. Jackson was reported to have said, “John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.”
A future Supreme Court may decide that various policies of the federal government, such as those described in this book, are unconstitutional. The federal bureaucracy already seems to be taking measures that would prevent those decisions from being enforced. Here’s evidence:
The February 20, 2019, issue of Newsmax cited a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office saying that, from 2010 to 2017, twenty non-military “law enforcement” agencies spent at least $38.8 million on firearms, $325.9 million on ammunition, and $1.14 billion on tactical equipment.
By 2017, the IRS had 4,487 guns, including 15 fully automatic machine guns and 5.1 million rounds of ammunition. (Everyone knows that machine guns are essential when you’re auditing taxpayers.)
The Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General had 194 fully automatic firearms and 386,952 rounds of ammo. (Inspector Generalship is always hazardous.)
The EPA had 377 pistols with 220,418 pistol rounds and 223 shotguns with 146,975 shotgun rounds. (Those dirty polluters, you gotta watch ‘em every minute.) The FDA had 390 pistols with 166,783 pistol rounds and 122 shotguns with 30,620 shotgun rounds. (You’d be a fool to inspect meat or research drugs without being armed.)
(The deplorables may attack us at any time, probably with the Supreme Court’s support. They must not succeed. What does the Court know about administrative government anyway?)
