night watchman state

plural night watchman states · alternative night-watchman state

1. governmentGovernment 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

   1 more example

   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

   Synonyms: minarchy, minimal state