In the wake of federal stimulus packages, bailouts, and massive overhauls of the nation’s health care and financial sectors, the concept of “limited government” might appear out of date. Still, the American system of government is designed to adhere to constitutionally defined limits. Key to the success of that system is a concept known as subsidiarity. Christopher Wolfe, co-director of the Thomas International Center and professor emeritus of political science at Marquette University, recently discussed subsidiarity with the John Locke Foundation’s Shaftesbury Society. He also spoke with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
Kokai: First of all, subsidiarity: Some people may have heard that term, but many in our audience probably have not. What does that mean?
Wolfe: I suspect most haven’t. It’s basically the idea that tasks that can be performed competently by individuals should be done by them, rather than by communities, and tasks that can be performed by lower levels of community should be done by them rather than higher communities. So it’s basically kind of a decentralization principle that things should be done at the lowest level of community where they can be done adequately.
Kokai: How would this fit in with the idea then of limited government?
Wolfe: Well, it’s very associated with some of the ideas of decentralization that have been important in American government. Federalism is one obvious example of decentralization, but even within the states themselves there’s a lot of decentralization, and subsidiarity provides a kind of theoretical foundation. It explains why it’s a good thing to decentralize power.
Kokai: You mentioned during your presentation that this concept of subsidiarity is different as a foundation for limited government than the concept that fans of John Locke know about, which is trying to keep the bad guys from doing bad things to us.
Wolfe: Yeah, the Lockean argument for limited government is rooted in a certain theory, a theory of the state of nature and of the social contract. It kind of presumes that human beings start out as isolated individuals, and then, in a sense, men invent government. Governments are a kind of artificial construction or invention of human beings, and I just don’t think that’s a very accurate understanding of the origins of government. I think [that] government is really natural and that we are kind of born into communities, beginning with the family. But those families themselves are pretty typically imbedded in larger communities at different levels. And so I just think that we ought to look for a somewhat different theoretical account of the foundations of limited government from the one that Locke offers, and I think subsidiarity does that.
Kokai: OK, so you’ve explained what subsidiarity is. Some people, I hope, are grasping what it is, but they still might be asking themselves, “Well, why is this important?” Why is it important to have the lowest level, either the individual or lowest-level group, performing a function rather than someone else? Why is that important?
Wolfe: That’s the right question to ask, and I think the answer is this: that if we want a kind of adequate broad theory of government, we ought to start with the dignity of the human person and the common good. We want a society that really tries to help all individual human beings to achieve the fulfillment that they want. Now, the way that’s done, typically, is not by people telling other people what to do or doing it for them. What it really means is helping human beings to pursue their fulfillment, and that means that higher levels of association should not displace the initiative and the activity of lower communities and of individuals, because when they do that, in a way they’re making those individuals dependent on them, rather than the individuals relying on themselves. And when individuals rely on themselves, they have to do things, they have to have initiative, they have to develop their talents and abilities, and that really helps them to develop as human beings, and that’s a good thing. That’s what government should want to do, to create the conditions where people are able to develop themselves and become better human beings.
Kokai: An example you gave in the presentation that fits in with what we were just talking about is someone in government saying, “Don’t worry about this. We’ll take care of it.” And that seems to be something that could be a long-term problem, isn’t it?
Wolfe: Oh, yeah. I mean, Alexis de Tocqueville, I think, is a great analyst of American life. He wrote a great book called Democracy in America, and in that he really stresses that one of the tremendous advantages of democracy is precisely that it stimulates individual initiative. It stimulates people to be active and to undertake interesting activities that develop their own abilities. And one of Tocqueville’s great fears about democracy is that there’s such a great love of equality in democracy and there’s such a great tendency toward individualism that people in the end might not be as involved in political activity as they ought to be, and they might be willing to turn over government to a small group of leaders and let those leaders do things for them, rather than really do things themselves and be more actively involved themselves in the various activities in their lives.
So, I mean, Tocqueville would be an example of a thinker who kind of worries about what he calls “democratic despotism,” where you have this vast superintending power which will take care of people, so it looks from one perspective as if it’s benevolent, but by doing so really deprive people of the opportunity to live their own lives and thereby actually end up harming people rather than helping them.
Kokai: If that’s the type of outcome that people would have chosen on their own because they think, “Well, you know, these people in the government, they know what they’re doing, let’s let them take care of it,” are there safeguards we need to build into our system, or preserve within our system, to stop the central government from taking over too much authority?
Wolfe: Well, I think that’s what we did in the Constitution. I mean, federalism, for example, is a fundamental constitutional principle. It says that there is a kind of division of power between the central government and the states, and that’s one way of protecting the initiative of at least the states as a lower level of political organization. It also operates politically even within the national government, because even when the national government does things, very often rather than doing it directly itself, it will do things through states and localities and lower levels of organization. Or it might even do it through private associations. I think of the faith-based initiative, for example, that President George W. Bush promoted, and I think he did that partly with a view to subsidiarity, that rather than just the government running programs, they could cooperate with various voluntary associations, including religious ones, in order to try to achieve the goals that we think are beneficial.
For instance, a good example would be substance abuse programs. There’s some real evidence that faith-based programs are much more effective than certain government programs, and so, by promoting that approach, you see a kind of example of subsidiarity in action.