What the State Can't Do: Mises on Legitimate Force

Tom Woods' foreword to Ludwig von Mises' "Liberalism" frames the whole book around a single question: when the state is allowed to use force. The classical liberal answer, Woods writes, sets the bar very high. The state may initiate force only to defend persons and property against those who would do the same.

Mises wrote the book in 1927, at a moment when fascism and communism were both ascendant. He argued that liberalism–the old, 19th-century kind–was the only doctrine that could defend peace and prosperity. The state, in his view, was a necessary evil, not a tool for social engineering. Its job was to protect individual rights, nothing more.

The Mises Institute, a non-profit that published the foreword, carries that tradition forward. It teaches Austrian economics, individual freedom, and honest history. It is non-political and non-partisan. It opposes any compromise with statist ideas.

Woods' foreword is a short read. It does not try to summarize the whole book. It points to the core question and lets Mises speak for himself. For anyone new to classical liberalism, it is a good entry point. The argument is direct: the state's power must be limited, and the burden of proof is on those who want to expand it.