Subsidiarity

The development of the concept of subsidiarity has roots in the natural law philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and was mediated by the social scientific theories of Luigi Taparelli in his 1840–1843 natural law treatise on the human person in society. In that work, Taparelli established the criteria of just social order, which he referred to as "hypotactical right" and which came to be termed "subsidiarity" following German influences.

Another origin of the concept is in the writings of Calvinist law-philosopher Johannes Althaus who used the word subsidia in 1603. As a principle of just social order, it became one of the pillars of modern Catholic social teaching. Subsidiarity is a general principle of European Union law. In the United States, Article VI, Paragraph 2 of the constitution of the United States is known as the Supremacy Clause. This establishes that the federal constitution, and federal law generally, take precedence over state laws, and even state constitutions. The principle of states' rights is sometimes interpreted as being established by the Tenth Amendment, which says that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Political theory

Alexis de Tocqueville's classic study, Democracy in America, may be viewed as an examination of the operation of the principle of subsidiarity in early 19th century America. Tocqueville noted that the French Revolution began with "a push towards decentralization ... in the end, an extension of centralization". He wrote that "Decentralization has, not only an administrative value, but also a civic dimension, since it increases the opportunities for citizens to take interest in public affairs; it makes them get accustomed to using freedom. And from the accumulation of these local, active, persnickety freedoms, is born the most efficient counterweight against the claims of the central government, even if it were supported by an impersonal, collective will."

As Christian Democratic political parties were formed, they adopted the Catholic social teaching of subsidiarity, as well as the neo-Calvinist theological teaching of sphere sovereignty, with both Catholics and Protestants agreeing "that the principles of sphere sovereignty and subsidiarity boiled down to the same thing".

The term "subsidiarity" is also used to refer to a tenet of some forms of conservative or libertarian thought in the United States. For example, conservative author Reid Buckley writes:

Will the American people never learn that, as a principle, to expect swift response and efficiency from government is fatuous? Will we never heed the principle of subsidiarity (in which our fathers were bred), namely that no public agency should do what a private agency can do better, and that no higher-level public agency should attempt to do what a lower-level agency can do better – that to the degree the principle of subsidiarity is violated, first local government, the state government, and then federal government wax in inefficiency? Moreover, the more powers that are invested in government, and the more powers that are wielded by government, the less well does government discharge its primary responsibilities, which are (1) defence of the commonwealth, (2) protection of the rights of citizens, and (3) support of just order.

The United Nations Development Programme's 1999 report on decentralisation noted that subsidiarity was an important principle. It quoted one definition:

Decentralization, or decentralising governance, refers to the restructuring or reorganisation of authority so that there is a system of co-responsibility between institutions of governance at the central, regional and local levels according to the principle of subsidiarity, thus increasing the overall quality and effectiveness of the system of governance, while increasing the authority and capacities of sub-national levels.

According to Richard Macrory, the positive effects of a political/economic system governed by the principle of subsidiarity include:

• Systemic failures of the type seen in the crash of 2007/08 can largely be avoided, since diverse solutions to common problems avoid common mode failure.
• Individual and group initiative is given maximum scope to solve problems.
• The systemic problem of moral hazard is largely avoided. In particular, the vexing problem of atrophied local initiative/responsibility is avoided.

He writes that the negative effects of a political/economic system governed by the principle of subsidiarity include:

• When a genuine principle of liberty is recognised by a higher political entity but not all subsidiary entities, implementation of that principle can be delayed at the more local level.
• When a genuinely efficacious economic principle is recognised by a higher political entity, but not all subsidiary entities, implementation of that principle can be delayed at the more local level.
• In areas where the local use of common resources has a broad regional, or even global, impact, higher levels of authority may have a natural mandate to supersede local authority.