minarchy

minimum +‎ -archy

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɪnɑː(ɹ)ki/, /ˈmɪnə(ɹ)ki/

minarchy (countable and uncountable, plural minarchies)

1. Government with the least necessary power over its citizens.
   • 2005, Serge-Christophe Kolm, Macrojustice: The Political Economy of Fairness, page 373:

     This "minarchy," often dubbed the "nightwatchman State," reduced to police (and possibly army), is their historical ideal - and even in present days that of philosopher Nozick, for instance.

   • 2011, Farhoud Rastegar, From Bushman to Bush: As History Has Brought Us to a Point of No Return, page 101:

     In minarchy the owner of a property is the sole owner of the private propety and what comes out of it.

   • 2012, Charles Johnson, “Toward a Dialectical Anarchism”, in Roderick T. Long, Tibor R. Machan, editor, Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country?, page 156:

     But even the most minimal minarchy, at some point, must claim its citizens' exclusive allegiance

• nightwatchman state