Ferdinand Lassalle was a Prussian-German jurist, philosopher, socialist and politician who is best remembered as the initiator of the social-democratic movement in Germany. "Lassalle was the first man in Germany, the first in Europe, who succeeded in organising a party of socialist action", according to Élie Halévy. Or, as Rosa Luxemburg put it: "Lassalle managed to wrestle from history in two years of flaming agitation that needed decades to come about".
Lassalle in 1860
Photo of Ferdinand Lassalle on a carte de visite
Lassalle's tomb in Breslau, now the Old Jewish Cemetery, Wrocław
Minister President of Prussia Otto von Bismarck, with whom Lassalle started political relations
A night-watchman state, or minarchy, whose proponents are known as minarchists, is a model of a state that is limited and minimal, whose functions depend on libertarian theory. Right-libertarians support it only as an enforcer of the non-aggression principle by providing citizens with the military, the police, and courts, thereby protecting them from aggression, theft, breach of contract, fraud, and enforcing property laws.
The term was coined by Ferdinand Lassalle and derived from the watchman system used by various European cities starting in the medieval period. The voluntary militia functioned as a city guard for internal policing and against external aggression.
