Saving Subsidiarity: Why it is not about small government

[salvorhardin]

I wish I could post this in GD since it is relevant to the debate over the Ryan budget, but since this is a Catholic magazine, I'll post it here in the Religion forum to be safe.

Critics of the Ryan budget have argued that solidarity—the virtue that impels us to active concern for the needs of others—must be used to balance subsidiarity. While this argument is true, it gives too much away, for subsidiarity is an application of solidarity, not its opposite. Subsidiarity is not a principle of small government. It is a two-edged sword. Subsidiarity warns against the overbearing action of any large social actors and also demands that they render assistance, subsidium, when problems are too large to be handled by smaller, local actors.

Subsidiarity envisions not a small government, but a strong, limited one that encourages intermediate bodies and organizations (families, community groups, unions, businesses) to contribute to the common good. It envisions a strong government that protects individuals and small intermediate bodies from the actions of large organizations—not just the state but corporations as well.

That Representative Ryan could publicly change his allegiance from Ayn Rand to Catholic social doctrine without changing his policies suggests something is terribly amiss. His confusion is the fruit of decades of work by Catholic thinkers serving in neoliberal (so-called “conservative”) think tanks of Washington, D.C., aiming to conscript Catholic social doctrine as an ally in their libertarian economic agenda. The debate around the Ryan budget shows they have effectively transformed the concept of subsidiarity into a principle of small government.

Link: http://americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?o=1000&article_id=13510

[cbayer]

1. Interesting. FWIW, I think this would be fine to post in GD or Good Reads.