Nanny state

An unhelpfully negative term for the kind of government action that can strengthen society’s free institutions and civilising values.

Conservative politicians often complain about the ‘nanny state’ and there is an amusing blog dedicated to its failures. Their instinctive suspicion of government interference in private lives is a good instinct… but it can mutate into unhelpful hostility.

A government initiative to improve parenting skills is dismissed as nanny statism. A campaign to increase lone parents’ awareness of the dangers of debt is dismissed as the busybodying of the nanny state. And so on…

Some small government conservatives have become so anti-government that they cannot countenance any role for the state in tackling the root causes of increased demand for government services. This is a dangerous gluttony. Without stronger families the calls on state welfare are only likely to grow. The average lone parent family costs the taxpayer £100,000+ but a healthy marriage course may only cost a few hundred pounds – if that. The debt-to-depression-to-drugs-to-crime spiral has been well-observed and is hugely expensive. Wouldn’t a little debt education – or statutory regulation of lending practice – be a wise investment?

You can have the nanny state or the sixties socialist state…

Intruder capitalists need to consider if their opposition to what they pejoratively call the ‘nanny state’ only hastens the growth of the much more pernicious ’sixties socialist state’. If they are dogmatically unwilling to invest in the welfare society, or tackle the causes of welfare state expansion, they need to accept that the welfare state will only grow and grow.

Small government conservatives would be wiser investing their time in defining the nature of the welfare society-supporting state (a more accurate description of the nanny state). They could start by insisting that civil society groups provide marriage, debt or other forms of counselling. This advice and counselling could still be financed by the state but which groups receive funding could be decided by stakeholders.

Comments

[Sukha]

zorica simanic каже:Zivim na Sarom Ceraku. Izmedju stnebmaih zgrada u Petefijevevoj ulici postoji parkic sa kosarkaskim terenom koji se vrlo lose odrzava, kante za smece nisu ispraznjene bar mesec dana a ni trava potsisana. Na ovom prostoru se igra svaki dan bar pedesetoro dece razlicitog uzrasta. Molim da preduzmetae nesto. Inace ostali deo naselja se vrlo lepo odrzava. Hvala i pozdrav!