night watchman state en · NOUN
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.
Meanings
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Government that is limited to a bare minimum of functions, usually just military, police, and courts.
The doctrines of conservative liberalism were propounded by the late nineteenth century's leading intellectual proponents of the night watchman state.
1992, Mark A. Graber, Transforming Free Speech: The Ambiguous Legacy of Civil Libertarianism, University of California Press, →ISBN, page 18: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”.
2011 February 1, Tristram Hunt, “The coalition holds Britain's cultural fabric in contempt”, in The Guardian:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| night watchman states | Number=Plur | lexicographic | |
| night-watchman state | alternative | lexicographic |
Coordinates
police state · welfare state · nanny state
Synonyms
Translations (9)
pl państwo minimalne (Translations) · cmn 守夜人國家 /守夜人国家 (Translations) · es estado vigilante nocturno (Translations) · fr État-gendarme (Translations) · sv nattväktarstat (Translations) · fi yövartijavaltio (Translations) · nl nachtwakersstaat (Translations) · de Nachtwächterstaat (Translations) · de Minimalstaat (Translations)