NANNY STATE

noun (Politics) (People and Society) A derogatory nickname for the Welfare State, according to which government institutions are seen as authoritarian and paternalistic, interfering in and controlling people's lives in the same way as a nanny might try to control those of her charges. Etymology: Formed by compounding: the state perceived as playing the role of nanny. History and Usage: The coinage of the nickname nanny state has been attributed to both Bernard Levin and Ian Macleod; certainly it was first applied to the paternalistic British Welfare State, with its insistence on limiting individual's freedoms if this could be argued to be for the individual's own good. Under the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher in the eighties the term acquired a new emphasis as the ethos of individualism and enterprise was presented as a better alternative to spoon-feeding from the nanny state; the government's programme of privatization was one way in which individuals were to be weaned from reliance on such spoon-feeding. However, opponents of the government argued that authoritarianism and paternalism were stronger than ever in other areas, leaving the nanny state intact in so far as it affected individual rights and freedoms. From the mid eighties the term was used in Australian politics as well. The British, we are incessantly told, have now rejected the 'nanny state' and regard the social worker as a boring pest. Washington Post 14 Aug. 1983, p. 5 The Nanny State is alive and well Down Under. The immediate target is the cigarette industry and individual smokers, but the drive to purify our lives will not end there. Weekend Australian (Brisbane) 9-10 Apr. 1988, p. 20 A measure of privatisation of adoption is called for, with a diminution in the powers of...ideological apartheiders of the nanny State. The Times 28 Sept. 1989, p. 17