State tutelage

As state paternalism is called when a state with prohibitions or obligations, sanctions or other impediments affects the behavior of its citizens and restrict the right of mature citizens to free decision in an inappropriate manner. Whether a sanction is inappropriate is up to the individual observer and is occasionally the subject of legal proceedings.

These measures are often accompanied by intensive control activities by the state. State institutions try to implement or maintain the above measures, although those affected actively and passively defend themselves against it.

In the English-speaking world, the term nanny state (literally: nanny state ) has established itself. In German, the rarely used term guardianship state overlaps with the terms overprotective state and control state .

Subject areas

• Bans that essentially only affect private life, e.g. B. Criminal liability for homosexual acts, § 175 StGB
• Excessive bureaucratic requirements in state procedures ( harassment )
• Penalty taxes , e.g. B. Eco tax , plastic bag levy in Great Britain and Ireland
• Collection of information, e.g. B. Question about sexual orientation during examination, census
• Commandments or prohibitions, often combined with deterrent or draconian punishments, which are perceived as disproportionate or unusually high in other countries or cultures
• State protectionism , dirigism and strong market regulation , e.g. B. Discount law , fixed book prices

The classification of individual measures as state tutelage is not definitive. So you could z. B. see the helmet requirement for motorcyclists as justified, since accidents of unhelmet motorcyclists are often associated with injuries with high and possibly permanent costs for the community, but a helmet requirement for cyclists is rejected due to the lower risk of injury.

Background of the term nanny state

United States and United Kingdom

The use of the term nanny state in English-speaking countries varies depending on the political context. In general, this means a policy in which the state excessively pursues its wish to protect ( guardianship ), to govern or to control certain parts of society. Which aspects are designated as patronized depends on the use or the point of view of the person concerned. The term can refer to:

• national, economic and social policy ( market regulation , dirigism , state intervention ), which favors certain, often large, companies or corporate sectors or groups of people,

• international trade policy , which favors domestic industrial companies (protectionism), especially because the state protects them from foreign competition. As a result of numerous multilateral liberalization agreements , e.g. B. the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the World Trade Organization , most states have limited options for this today.

• Health and social care, free settlement of migrants

In the United States, politically conservative or economically liberal groups, especially paleoconservative movements that advocate the free market or capitalism , speak out against excessive actions by the state aimed at protecting citizens from the consequences of their own actions by preventing the Restrict citizens' options for action. Conversely, civil rights organizations advocate more civil rights . The National Rifle Association in the USA is a case in point . This fights for a broad right of gun ownership as a civil right and describes itself as the oldest civil rights organization in the United States. On the other hand, conservative groups in the US are in favor of a ban on abortion .

American liberals and ultra - liberals use the English term nanny state to describe the state as overly protective of companies and entrepreneurship . He thus acts to the detriment of the common good and the consumer . This usage of the word can also be found in an international context, where the public welfare generally means the well-being of people and where the state protects domestic companies from foreign companies to an exaggerated degree.

The English term nanny state was coined by the Conservative British MP Iain Macleod . In his Quoodle column of The Spectator , issue of December 31, 1965, he wrote what I like to call the nanny state ... (... what I would like to call the nanny state ...) .

The as critics of the foreign policy of the United States known Noam Chomsky regularly used the expression Nanny State in order to protectionism policy of the United States pointed out.

Singapore

The city-state of Singapore is known as the guardianship state . It is characterized by a large number of government regulations and restrictions that limit the lives of citizens. Former Prime Minister and then Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew , the architect of modern Singapore, said: If Singapore is a nanny state, then I am proud to have sponsored one (“If Singapore is a nanny state, then I am proud to have fostered one. ”) The restriction that it is forbidden to throw chewing gum on the floor after use instead of in a rubbish bin is often mentioned with a high penalty . Anyone who violates it risks years of imprisonment . From 1992 to 2004, the sale of chewing gum was completely banned in Singapore. Since then, pharmacies have been allowed to sell chewing gum to registered buyers.

Variants of the term

Political decisions such as the prohibition of drug abuse , the minimum age for the consumption of alcohol and tobacco (especially if these also apply to private use), the obligation to wear a helmet or high taxes on junk food are sometimes viewed as acts of a guardianship state. Such actions result from the conviction that the state or one of its local authorities has a duty to protect its citizens from harmful behavior and that the state knows better than its citizens what self-harm is.

Protection against the harmful behavior of others, such as the ban on smoking in public or the gun policy , are also sometimes viewed as paternalism, as is political correctness or censorship .

Guardianship states tend to make choices that reduce risk in areas such as health and safety issues . The EU has been criticized, for example, when she in 2007 in June mercury in barometers banned.

The British Labor politician Margaret Hodge is one of the most famous advocates of the guardianship state. In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute on November 26, 2004 , she said some may call it the nanny state, but I call it a force for good (some may call it a nanny state, but I call it a force of good) .

Individual perception

Depending on the impact on those affected, state tutelage is perceived as negative (curtailment of personal freedoms) or positive (protection through state welfare). Correspondingly controversial topics were or are, for example:

• Interventions in the freedom of occupation - so it was heavily criticized that the federal government published a list of the affected wines and bottlers in the course of the glycol wine scandal . This even led to lawsuits before the Federal Constitutional Court , whose “judgment in the sense of market transparency and preventive consumer protection” was expressly welcomed by the consumer advice centers
• Liberal or socialist state model - the former minimizes the influence of the state on the individual and grants the greatest possible freedom, the latter sees the state responsible for protecting citizens against essential risks in life and eliminating social inequalities.
• Smoking bans and the protection of non-smokers - here too, laws thatregulate smoking are either rejected or welcomed, depending on the individualsituation, see Social acceptance of smoking bans .

Web links

Wiktionary: tutelage  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

• Nanny madness - What's so terrible about the nanny state, anyway? , in The Guardian, May 26, 2004
• The Conservative Nanny State by Dean Baker (May 2006) (PDF file; 1.02 MB)
• DER SPIEGEL 33/2013 - The nanny state

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Singapore Story: 1965-2000 ( Memento of the original from March 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in straitstimes.com, Lee Kuan Yew. 2000 
2. ↑ Singapore - chewing gum for registered buyers only , in spiegel.de, May 27, 2004
3. ↑ M. Banks, Jones, G .: Barometer makers lose battle over mercury , Telegraph. July 6, 2007. Retrieved July 23, 2007. 
4. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Federal Constitutional Court on lawsuits in the glycol scandal 
5. ↑ http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/pnorris/Acrobat/Fuchs.pdf D. Fuchs: The democratic culture of unified Germany