Night-watchman State Research Articles

Was Thomas Hobbes the first biopolitical thinker?

Thomas Hobbes's name often comes up as scholars debate the history of biopower, which regulates the biological life of individual bodies and entire populations. This article examines whether and to what extent Hobbes may be regarded as the first biopolitical philosopher. I investigate this question by performing a close reading of Hobbes's political texts and by comparing them to some of the most influential theories on biopolitics proposed by Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, Roberto Esposito, and others. Hobbes is indeed the first great thinker to assert the supreme political importance of safeguarding life. Furthermore, this prominence of non-contemplative life is not limited to mere survival but also seeks to allow for the people's happiness. This may indeed allow us to consider him as the first biopolitical philosopher, at least in some limited capacity. However, the Englishman's biopolitical stance lacks the practical aspects seen in examples of ‘properly modern’ biopolitics. Moreover, peoples’ lives were already governed radically in antiquity. I argue that Hobbes's biopolitical system was, therefore, minimal in the sense of a ‘biopolitical nightwatchman state’. However, he acted as an undeniable catalyst to the ‘properly biopolitical era of modernity’, when mundane life and happiness became the explicit main objects of virtually all politics.

Land Management Rights Before and After the Government Regulation in Lieu of Job Creation Law

There are regulations regarding land management rights (HPL) in Law Number 11 of 2020 concerning Job Creation in Government Regulation in Lieu of Law Number 2 of 2022 concerning Job Creation. The background is the birth of the Investment policy made by President Joko Widodo's Government. HPL is regulated separately as a “right”, whereas in the Basic Regulations on Agrarian Principles (UUPA) which is the source of law, there is no mention of “rights”. Related to the authority of the State's Right to Control (HMN). The Government Regulation transfers HPL as a whole to certain parties. There should be a role for regulators and operators participating in planning, implementation and supervision. Therefore, there must be clarity on the position of the authority “controlled by the state” for HMN constitutionally against HPL in Government Regulations that refer to the constitution. In a normative legal approach, Article 33 of the 1945 Constitution mandates the state to conduct beleid, bestuursdaad, regelendaad, beheersdaad, tezichthoudensdaad. Philosophically, the government functions as a regulator and operator. As an operator, the Government carries out its duties as a coach and supervisor by directly implementing activities. This is confirmed in the Decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia Number 001-21-22-PUUI 2003 on HMN. Suppose HPL in the Government Regulation is released. In that case, it is not much different from embracing the concept of nachtwachternstaat or night watchman state, not the principle of welvaarstaat which fully utilizes the control of wealth sources for the greatest prosperity of the people. As it should be, HPL in HMN can provide direction for law enforcers and stakeholders with a role and authority in the land acquisition process.

Isabella Jackson. Shaping Modern Shanghai: Colonialism in China’s Global City.

In Shaping Modern Shanghai: Colonialism in China’s Global City, Isabella Jackson provides a comprehensive and careful history of the Shanghai Municipal Council, the government of the Shanghai International Settlement from 1863 to 1943. Created by British gunboat diplomacy in the First Opium War, this colonial concession operated as an autonomous local government elected by the taxpayers who owned property there. These businessmen stamped this concession government with their laissez faire economic philosophy. Their night watchman state featured low taxes, focused on infrastructure and policing, and kept regulations and assistance to the poor to a minimum. The one element of this local government that was not minimal was its prison, reportedly the largest in the world with more than 6,500 prisoners (120). Jackson briefly connects her analysis of this colonial outpost to debates over colonialism and globalization, but her main interest lies not in theorizing, but in offering a detailed institutional history of this local government. She examines each dimension of this municipal government, with chapters devoted to taxes, personnel, police, public health, and welfare. The analysis is based on a rich array of primary sources from the Shanghai Municipal Archives, newspapers, and memoirs in both English and Chinese. Jackson places this history in the larger context of the British Empire, tracing the connections to the other treaty ports in China, Hong Kong, India, and London.

The High Court of Kenya as an Egalitarian Pro-Poor Court

In this paper, I seek to show that the High Court of Kenya has clearly understood its role in the post 2010 dispensation and has at its heart the promises of the 2010 constitution, it has rejected the classical liberalists concept of a night watchman state and accepted the welfare state12. The high court has been enforcing the transformative leitmotif and the egalitarian ethos of the constitution. I will consider how the court has baptized the issue of standing, the liberalization of the test of standing under the constitution, secondly I will consider how the High Court has refused to be guided by the undesired ‘Anarita precedent’ and thirdly the writer will show how the high court has enforced the socio-economic rights.

The International Monetary Fund’s interventions in food and agriculture: An analysis of loans and conditions

The mandate and competence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) does not cover food and agriculture policies. While there is anecdotal evidence that the IMF engages in these policies regardless, the state-of-the-art lacks a systematic empirical foundation to identify the extent of its mission creep into these sectors. Based on a combination of machine and human coding, we present a comprehensive database on the IMF’s policy interventions in food and agriculture. Using new data on ‘conditionalities’—policies that governments must implement to access IMF credit—we assess to what extent the IMF has targeted these sectors for the period 1980 to 2014. Our analysis evaluates the agricultural content and ideological orientation of conditions according to whether they promote a developmental state, a night-watchman state, or neither. We find about 2% of all IMF conditions (1105 of 58,406) directly target food and agriculture issues. These are present in 43% of all IMF programs (332 of 781); and affect 100 countries (of the 131 countries that have had an IMF agreement). In addition, our analysis reveals that 59.2% of these conditions embody policy measures in line with night-watchman state policy preferences, 40.1% are model-neutral, and 0.7% developmental. Within the model-neutral category, 23.9% are conditions oriented towards building state capacity; 2.7% have a poverty reduction content; and 2.9% contain pro-environment policies. The IMF’s primary reason for targeting food and agriculture is to enforce fiscal discipline by removing subsidies, yet our analysis identifies that only 8% of these policies abolish subsidies. A more consistent explanation of the IMF’s interest in food and agriculture is its broader mission creep into development policy, and its deep-rooted pro-market ideology.

Dictators, Democrats and Development in Southeast Asia: Lessons for the Rest

Of the ten fastest growing economies since 1960, eight are in East Asia. As Haggard (2018) aptly demonstrates for Northeast Asia, two explanations account for this exceptional regional performance. On the one hand, neo-liberals committed to an Anglo-American night-watchman state (Krueger 1978; Bhagwati 1978; Edwards 1993; World Bank 1993; Pack and Saggi 2006) attribute performance to macroeconomic stability, provision of public goods, and openness to trade and investment. On the other hand, a heterodox group (Johnson 1982; Amsden 1989; Wade 1990/2004; Chang 2002, 1994; Rodrik 1995; Evans 1995; Lin 2009) focuses on market and coordination failures and the need for states to adopt pragmatic, ‘trial and error’ and selective approaches to high-speed growth. In this latter view, the strong developmental states of Northeast Asia used their embedded autonomy viz the private sector to overcome market and coordination failures to usher in rapid growth and technological catch-up.

The night watchman becomes a mercenary

ABSTRACTIn the latest stage in the neoliberal transformation in Israel, privatization has reached into the security sector. The question of causality between Israel's security policies and the interests of its security industry has inspired extensive writing, producing a wide variety of conclusions. An alternative analysis through a ‘capital as power’ framework casts the relations as a shift in direction of the Israeli security elites, who are in a state of crisis. The attempt of Israel's security elites to capitalize on their experience and convert it into material wealth can explain both the privatization underway in Israel, and the frequent conflicts which are initiated by the Israeli government and which generate this experience. This attempt, however, undermines the collectivized production of security typical of a settler society at an early stage. The professionalization of the security elite goes hand in hand with a demilitarization of Israeli society. By adopting privatization as a coping mechanism against the threat posed by the ‘night watchman state’ neoliberal model, Israel's security elites straddle the bridge between public and private security institutions. They become more globalized and increasingly produce security in exchange for money, as mercenaries, instead of as ideological citizen-soldiers.

Nowy Ład wobec tradycji klasycznej

Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised the Americans the creation of the New Deal as he won the 1932 presidential election. It was a realization of a new and progressive vision of the world and, in consequence, it was to bring the Great Depression to an end. The scale of the metamorphosis was of unprecedented magnitude in the history of the United States. The next decade witnessed a doctrinal shift from the negative to a positive freedom,from deontological ethics to consequentionalism, and from the night watchman state to the welfare state. These changes found further reflection in the introduction of economic interventionism, centralization, trade protectionism and the development of the social care system. However, while seeking an ideological support for the transformational reform of the liberal doctrine, Roosevelt appealed to the traditional values of the American classical liberalism – freedom and equality. The legitimization of the system and of the political reforms was to be accomplished mainly by using the authority of the Founding Fathers. This rhetoric allowed Roosevelt to gain public support for the New Deal. The president-successor to the heritage of Jefferson and Madison acquired a moral right to lead the nation andsteer the state in a new direction. His program became “liberal” and “American” even if it bore a startling resemblance to the European authoritarian regimes of the age.

Роль общественного мнения Великобритании второй половины XIX в. в развитии социального законодательства в 70-90-х гг. Правления королевы Виктории

Using primary sources in Russian and British historiography, the author analyzes the evolution of public thought in Great Britain in the second half of the 19th century, its turn from individualism and principle of “night-watchman state” to a more socially-oriented position. This transformation, which occurred under the influence of both evident and hidden factors, was one of the key prerequisites for formation in the seventh decade of the 19th century of the New Toryism and “social liberalism” doctrines, the framework of which was used by the British government to chart a course for systematic social reforms in the areas of health care, elementary education, residential development and labor law. By analyzing the views of J. Bentham, J.S. Mill and T.H. Green, as well as literary works of the period in question, the author traces the process of alienation of the “laissez-faire” policy (the classical principle of state non-interference in economy) by a certain part of the British society and the readiness to reassess the role of the state in the social sphere. The article presents in detail the search for philosophical, social and socialistic thought, aimed at solving the deepest social problems and predicating, in many aspects, the cycle of social reforms carried out by the Disraeli and Gladstone cabinets under the auspices of the state in the middle of the late Victorian period. The author points out that the social policy of the prime ministers W. Gladstone in 1868-1874 and B. Disraeli in 1874-1800 was historically the first precedent when the liberal doctrine which took the shape of the so-called Manchester liberalism in Great Britain had to recognize the principles of social state, economic regulation and a stronger role of the state in the British society. The author notes that the foundations of most of the social reforms that are now perceived as integral components of a modern democratic society were laid precisely in this historical period. Thanks to the flexibility of the English establishment, that was able to assess the strength of public opinion and to offer social doctrines aimed at meeting the growing social demands, the British government demonstrated the art of subtle political maneuver and the possibility of a bloodless way of carrying out social reforms.

Advies aan de regering: staatscommissies in Nederland tussen 1814 en 1970

Continuing debate concerning the functioning of advisory boards to the Dutch central government seems hindered by lacking historical insight and insufficient empirical data. Especially the period until 1970 and so-called state committees (an important type of advisory board) have been neglected. This article therefore presents findings from historical research into Dutch state committees between 1814 and 1970. We provide a hitherto lacking overview of their origin, numbers, composition, functioning and topics. We also provide a first quantitative analysis to investigate the question what state committee activity tells us about continuity and change of the task perception of subsequent Dutch governments in this period. We argue that the so-called ‘night watchman state’ of the long 19th century (in which government did as least as possible) does become apparent from the number of state committees over time but that it seems never to have existed when we look at the topics they dealt with. Furthermore, the Dutch welfare state (said to have existed from the 1930s onwards) shows much less state committee activity then one would expect. We conclude with urgent questions for future research into advice and advisory boards in The Netherlands and introduce a digital database to facilitate such work.

Towards libertarian welfarism: protecting agency in the night-watchman state

One of the major debates within libertarian thought concerns the need for a centralized state structure to sustain the norms governing agents' behaviour in society. Minarchists support state monopolies over the means of coercion to ensure that society abides by these norms, whereas free-market anarchists consider such monopolies damaging and unnecessary, with norms maintained by agents' natural motivations. This article finds that the libertarian ‘pre-political’ principles which free-market anarchists adopt lack objectivity and plausible independence, creating a fundamental tension between the endorsement of a libertarian morality and anarchist commitments to pluralism of legal and political structures. It suggests that libertarians place a core, shared value on individual agency, but that this value can only be universalized through political processes of discussion and agreement, and sustained only in the presence of institutional sanction and coercion mechanisms. This article argues that libertarian commitments to agency require such mechanisms to be welfarist and minimally state-like, and proposes various ways in which the appropriate structures and policies could be realized, stressing the continuity of this novel form of libertarian welfarism with the aims and underlying values of both sides of the libertarian debate.

The Gold Standard at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Rising Powers, Global Money, and the Age of Empire (review)

Reviewed by: The Gold Standard at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Rising Powers, Global Money, and the Age of Empire Kenneth Mouré The Gold Standard at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Rising Powers, Global Money, and the Age of Empire. By Steven Bryan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. 288 pp. $50.00 (cloth). Alan Milward lamented fifteen years ago that studies of the adoption of the gold standard in less developed countries were "almost entirely lacking" and posited that politics and diplomacy had likely been more important than economic logic in shaping their decisions to adopt the gold standard.1 Steven Bryan's new book is a welcome addition to the work focusing on experience outside the European core to the gold standard world. Bryan examines the context and the public debates for and against the adoption of the gold standard in Japan and Argentina in the 1890s. As developing economies on the periphery, their perspective on international monetary standards and behavior provide an essential counterbalance to Eurocentric assumptions. Argentina depended heavily on trade with Britain and was vulnerable to changing world prices for agricultural exports. Japan was more advanced industrially, emerging from the semicolonial status imposed by trade treaties since 1859. A large share of its export trade went to countries with silver standard currencies. The depreciation of silver and the rivalry between gold, silver, and bimetallism as world standards made the gold standard a better prospect to provide exchange-rate stability, but trade considerations and access to international finance played a major role in decisions regarding whether and when to adopt [End Page 228] the gold standard and at what exchange rate. The international position of each country influenced domestic coalitions of interest in terms of exchange rate, trade partners, and capital flows. Bryan follows earlier authors who stress the accidental nature of the classical gold standard,2 giving attention to the 1890s as a "third phase" in the global expansion of the gold standard. (England linked its currency to gold in 1717, key European countries and the United States adopted the gold standard in the 1870s, and developing countries followed in the 1890s.) In both countries, concern for national prestige, currency stability, trade advantage, and access to foreign loans factored into the debate on gold standard adoption. Bryan's analysis and argument are framed to challenge authors who claim that the gold standard marked a late nineteenth-century triumph of international trade and free markets, as a historical parallel and precedent for the veneration of free markets and globalization at the end of the twentieth century. Not so, Bryan cautions. Adherence to the gold standard was not the success of English theories advocating free trade and a night watchman state. Countries joined the gold standard for nationalistic reasons in an era of protectionism, industrial competition, and increasing nationalism. The ideas of Friedrich List and Alexander Hamilton dominated policy discussions, not the classical liberalism of free trade and minimal government. The gold standard needs to be understood for its national, not its international, character (p. 32). In each country, national and sectoral interests structured the public debate on whether to adopt the gold standard. In Argentina, the gold standard advocates were industrial and agricultural exporters worried by the rising value of the Argentinean peso. Fixing the value to gold was advocated as a means to fix the peso at a low level to stimulate exports. The strongest opposition came from partisans of English theory, free trade, and laissez-faire, who saw the proposed currency stabilization as "not a true gold standard" but rather as devaluation and "robbery." The main architect of the gold standard policy, Carlos Pellegrini, sought to promote Argentinean industrial development through protectionism, government support for key industries, and monetary expansion. It was not just the gold standard but also undervaluing the peso to preserve an export advantage that motivated Pellegrini and his allies. In combination [End Page 229] with protectionist measures the gold standard would promote exports and national industrial development. In Japan the gold standard was less controversial. It was accepted as a fundamentally conservative measure to increase Japanese industrial and military power through export growth and access to foreign loans...

Reinventing the night-watchman state?

This article raises a principled objection to the privatization of certain core police services. Whereas most of the literature critical of privatizing security services has focused on the negative consequences of doing so (corruption, waste, etc.), the argument here focuses squarely on the standing of private parties to perform police services. According to an important strain of liberal political theory, certain tasks are assigned to the state not because it is deemed to be more efficient at delivering those services but simply because such services must be rendered by a party that acts in the name of the polity as a whole and not in the name of some narrower private interest. The author argues that all those policing functions – such as arrest, search, and detention – that require criminal law justification (because they involve conduct on the part of officers that is generally criminally prohibited) are of this nature. The article also summarizes the different dimensions of the larger privatization de...

HOUSING: FROM NIGHT WATCHMAN STATE TO WELFARE STATE

This paper illustrates and evaluates some of the features of the Danish and European research of the history of housing policy and relates these to the main results and perspectives in the author's doctoral thesis ‘Housing: From Night Watchman State to Welfare State – Construction and Housing Policy in three Danish Towns, 1850–1930’, 2006. The paper argues that the roots of the welfare state's housing policy are to be found in the far more prominent part which the public sector got to play in the Danish society as a result of the crises following World War I and the conjunctural repercussions throughout the 1920s.

The Old Institutionalism and the New

When scholars of United States talk about the as a conceptual variable, or bringing back in, it is not always clear what is being prescribed, or even what object of study is. To some extent, this dissonance is result of three separate arguments, in each of which it is important to define what is and does, but each of which has a separate trajectory and historiography Some writers argue over whether early Republic even had a and if so, whether it was relatively strong or weak. The idea of an original night watchman state, fondly beloved of modern libertarians, was also assumed by Progressive historians such as Charles Beard and New Dealers such as Arthur Schlesinger, who needed it as a foil. It was only with post-1970s crisis of liberalism that historians started to suggest that New Deal had been less new than advertised, and that perhaps states were not always administrative behemoths. Stephen Skowronek's concept of a nineteenth-century state of courts and parties has been widely influential. Theda Skocpol has argued that origins of twentiethcentury social welfare lay in military and mothers' pension systems extant before 1920. And recent work on nineteenth century has tried to establish point at which American became a state. Richard Bensel's Yankee Leviathan made a strong case for Civil War as a watershed; Laura Jensen's Patriots, Settlers, and Origins of American Social Policy pushed boundary back much further in time.1

Small Government, Big Society?: What Role for the State in the Chinese Transition Process?

Qin Hui Small Government, Big Society? What Role for the State in the Chinese Transition Process? An American scholar asked confusedly: In China today, who on earth is holding sway, the left or the right? I answered him: In light of your criteria, neither. Because leftists will make detailed inquiries about the responsibili­ ties of the rulers; and rightists will try to restrict the power of the rulers. Both of them as such are suppressed in China. However, the rulers help sustain their own leftists and rightists, for they need the “leftists” to expand their ruling power and the “rightists” to shift their responsibilities. Therefore, it may very well be said that both the leftists and the rightists are holding sway today in China. — Notes by the author ON THE ORIGIN OF “THE BEST GOVERNMENT” AND THE JEFFERSON-MASON CONSENSUS THE ADAGE “THAT GO VERN M EN T IS BEST W H IC H GOVERNS LEAST” HAS been regarded as the classic expression of such concepts as “small government, big society” and “the night-watchman state,” among others, of classical liberalism. But so far intellectual history has never solved the question of who the author of this famous saying is. social research Vol 73 : No 1 : Spring 2006 29 What is known for sure is that Henry David Thoreau, a ninenteenth -century American thinker, offered a more radical statement of the same idea in his Civil Disobedience, published in 1849: “It is widely said that that government is best which governs least. Actually it can be carried out more systematically and completely—‘That government is best which governs not at all.’” From this, it is clear that the adage was already widespread in Thoreau’s age. Of all the American presidents, as far as I know, Benjamin Harrison, the twenty-third president of the United States and a Republican (in office from 1889 to 1893), was the first that is recorded and can be traced back to who explicitly declared it as the philosophy of his administration.1Of course, neither Thoreau nor Harrison was the original author of the saying. Up to the moment, it is a popular practice in the English-speaking world to attribute the saying to Thomas Jefferson, one of the found­ ing fathers of the United States of America. This is a widely held view both in academic monographs and among ordinary readers.2And this “Jeffersonian saying” has been cited even more frequently in Chinese writings. Yet it is nowhere to be found in any of the anthologies of Jefferson’s articles or his letters that are currently in existence. Neither can it be located in the ThomasJefferson Heritage Society, which special­ izes in collecting Jefferson’s writings, nor in the Thomas Jefferson elec­ tronic data bank in the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia. In 1999, Eyler Robert Coates, chairman of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, published an answer on the net for the large number of people who were searching for the source of this saying. Coates says in his posting that “it is almost certain” that Jefferson never said anything like that. If Jefferson had said anything to that effect, how could he have held that there was “too small” a government? Coates said he believed that, in view of the consistency ofJefferson’s thoughts, had Jefferson written a statement of “the best government,” it could only have been something like this: That government is best which does the will of the people the most.3Not much later, Coates wrote two more articles, “Spurious Jefferson Quotes” and “That Government Is Best.. which are collected in a book he edited entitled TheJeffersonian 30 social research Perspective: Commentary on Today’s Social and Political Issues Based on the Writings ofThomasJefferson. In these two articles, Coates cited a number of Jefferson’s remarks on the responsibilities of government. And in a summary, Coates said: “The saying, ‘That government is best which governs least’ puts too much emphasis on the government as institu­ tionalized power, while Jefferson’s thoughts on government were more concerned with the government as a service provider that does the will of the people. Therefore, to arbitrarily make the government ‘govern the...

Regulating Death at Coalmines: changing mode of governance in China

China has an appalling record of workplace safety in its coalmining industry. This article first traces the long-term trends of fatality at different types of coalmines, then analyzes why the number and rate of fatalities in the industry have remained so high, and finally discusses how the government has gradually overhauled its regulatory system to cope with the dreadful state of safety. Based on the case study, the article concludes that China's transition from state socialism has not resulted in a Hayekian night-watchman state but in a new regulatory state, which exerts controls over a wide range of economic and social affairs via standard setting, supervision, monitoring, and enforcement.

CONTRACTING OUT WAR?: PRIVATE MILITARY COMPANIES, LAW AND REGULATION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

It was Robert Nozick who, distinguishing the classical liberal ‘night-watchman State’ which protected citizens against violence and enforced contracts on their behalf, conjured instead the ‘ultra-minimal State’1in which the task of the State is confined to the monopolization of violence rather than the actual provision of security (unless paid for by citizens by choice). On the face of it, it seems that Western governments are increasingly keen to move towards this model of the ultra-minimal State and to allow even the provision of force to be assumed by private enterprise on a contractual model in which the rich or the desperate may choose to avail themselves of fortifications at the going rate while the rest take their chances in life. The ultra-minimal State is left with a residual steering2policy role in which the parameters of contractual engagement for protection can be set. In short, it appears that nothing is sacrosanct in the onward march of the principles of neo-liberalism. Even the ultimate bastions of establishment—Her Majesty's armed forces—are not immune from processes of commodification and marketization that have previously been applied to core functions such as policing3and imprisonment.4

Trajectories for Modernizing Local Governance: Revisiting the Flanders Case

Local government plays a central but altering role in local governance. Together with the shift from a night-watchman state to a welfare state , the models of governance provision changed. Government itself became larger and more scattered throughout the local community. Moreover, government was no longer the only governance provider. Many actors were involved in governance with a diversity of steering relations. In our time, governance continues to change. What are the emerging models of local governance today? After sorting out some terminological and methodological issues, we describe four emerging ideal-type models (i.e. the holding model , the autonomous networks model , the implementation model and the reintegration model ), based on four societal scenarios (i.e. triumphant markets , hundred flowers , creative societies and turbulent neighbourhoods ). The models represent four possible local governance futures. Next, the models are applied on two management issues: organizational structure and financial management. Finally, some embryonic evidence is given on the emergence of the models.

Gender, Metaphor and the State

The neo-liberal upsurge of the last twenty years and the neo-liberal case against the welfare state has gained much of its emotional force from a sub-text which is highly gendered. Whereas social liberalism had contained the promise of more autonomy within the private sphere and more caring values in the public sphere, neo-liberalism depicts the results of social liberalism as a loss of self reliance – through ‘over-protection’ by the state in the public sphere and usurpation of male roles in the private sphere. The identification of the welfare state as female (the ‘nanny state’) helps fuel resentment on the part of those already confused by rapidly changing gender roles. This paper tracks the sex change which took place in the image of the liberal state as it evolved out of the night watchman state – the link between the women's suffrage movement and social regulation, maternal principles of distribution and demands for the public organization of caring. It examines the neo-liberal rejection of the breast and neo-liberal claims that the maternal state is incompatible with ‘self-reliance’ and a barrier to competitiveness in the world market.