The nanny becomes a bully

Katie van Schaijik | Mar 23, 2010

The Australian think tank Institute of Public Affairs has published an insightful article by Patrick Basham (hat tip Mark Levin) foretelling the coming of the bully state. Governmental paternalism leads inexorably to governmental strong-arming. Concern for public health rapidly becomes demand for “healthy behavior”, quickly followed by all manner of coercion.

The past generation of welfare statism saw the unduly protective Nanny State bleed into every sinew of our daily lives. Sociologist David Marsland explains that, ‘Once you have a big welfare state in place, the excuse for state nannying is infinite in scale’, he says. ‘This ... continues the process of reducing self-reliance and handing responsibility for ourselves to external bodies.’

Yet, just when you thought things could not get worse, they did. Two years ago, Oxford University’s Nuffield Council of Bioethics published a seminal report that provided the international public health establishment with the explicit rationale for a dramatic change in the relationship between the citizen and the State.

Of course, the implications of the Nuffield Report extend far beyond health. Given the expansive way in which health is now defined, the state’s power to enforce behavioural change on individuals reaches considerably beyond the current notion of what falls within health care.