night watchman state
See also: night-watchman state
English
Alternative forms
- night-watchman state
Etymology
Calque of German Nachtwächterstaat, which was coined by German socialist Ferdinand Lassalle in an 1862 speech in Berlin. He used this term to criticize the idea of a state with minimal government, comparing it to a night watchman whose sole duty was preventing theft.
Noun
night watchman state (plural night watchman states)
- (political philosophy) Government that is limited to a bare minimum of functions, usually just military, police, and courts.
- Synonyms: minarchy, minimal state
- Coordinate terms: nanny state, welfare state
- 1992, Mark A. Graber, Transforming Free Speech: The Ambiguous Legacy of Civil Libertarianism, University of California Press, →ISBN, page 18:
- The doctrines of conservative liberalism were propounded by the late nineteenth century's leading intellectual proponents of the night watchman state.
- 2011 February 1, Tristram Hunt, “The coalition holds Britain's cultural fabric in contempt”, in The Guardian:
- For these neoLiberal[sic] Democrats of the Orange Book school remain determined to junk social liberalism for economic liberalism. Their guiding light is the Gladstonian ideal of a low tax, laissez-faire, “night-watchman state”.
Translations
Translations
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