Power over people is the capability of obtaining subjective values through force initiated against others. Crusoe might exercise this power by using force or fraud to obtain values from Friday against his will, in effect reducing Friday to a means to Crusoe's ends. As we observed in Section 3, objective values cannot be obtained through this method without sacrificing or endangering still higher objective values (p. 3.12:11). Because power over people is most typically exercised on a large scale by governments, it is also called political power or the political means of action (Oppenheimer).

Although many people tend to regard these two kinds of power as interchangeable, power over nature (economic power) is not inherently tied to power over people. A close connection between the two is only characteristic of certain kinds of political systems, including a mixed economy such as that in the current United States. In such a system, as we shall see later, the principle of intervention has already received widespread acceptance and therefore becomes a ready tool for those powerful enough (politically, economically, or both) to wield it. In particular, it becomes possible in such a system to convert economic power into political power—for example, by bribing legislators and other officials to apply the apparatus of intervention toward one's own ends. In a mixed economy, consequently, political and economic power become intertwined. Since the perspective of most persons is limited to the concretely obvious that they see around them, it is not surprising that many citizens in a mixed economy remain unaware of the basic conceptual distinction between power over nature (producing) and power over people (expropriating). For understanding alternatives such as a free society, however, the distinction is indispensable.

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