ABSTRACT
Well before the advent of the welfare state, progressives struggled with whether to give the poor material assistance or moral guidance. While the nanny state might be dismissed as good intentions poorly applied, a darker side emerges in the bully state, state-sponsored interventions that damage citizens. In the absence of empirically determined effectiveness, however, the professions are vulnerable to the accusation that they have erected organizational edifices to justify rents, i.e. unearned income by virtue of excluding competitors. As conservatives challenged the welfare state for infantilizing the poor by insisting that benefits be in-kind, the "nanny state" came into focus. Public education often mirrored public welfare as a disservice to the minority poor. The flipside of overzealous child welfare interventions has been professional ineptitude in protecting abused children. Regardless of the ethical problems associated with government service, probably the majority of semi-professionals begin their careers in the public sector.
