nanny state
nounEtymology Of British origin.
1
Derogatory A state whose government institutions are authoritative and over-paternalistic, interfering with and controlling people's lives.
- Scapegoating an impotent government (running around to clean up the messes made by its business friends) arises from bad faith, from a continuing hostility to the Nanny State that nevertheless goes alongside a refusal to accept the consequences of the sidelining of government in global capitalism […]2009, Mark Fisher, chapter 8, in Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?, Zero Books, →ISBN, page 63:
- Antonyms
- minimal state, night watchman state
- Derived terms
- nanny stater