First principles: Subsidiarity

Looking over the events of the past month in terms of governmental/social organization, the concept of subsidiarity expresses most clearly what initially was not happening but ultimately what prevailed in the resolution of the Highland Lake Park/Soccer Complex situation.

Subsidiarity is the idea that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Any central authority should perform only those things that cannot be performed effectively at a more local level. Henderson County here is the more central, larger authority with the Village of Flat Rock as the smaller and more local authority. Local municipalities (which Flat Rock has been legally since its 1995 incorporation) should control as much as possible what goes on inside their own municipal boundaries. From a governmental perspective, subsidiarity better represents the authority closest to the people and therefore is most reflective of local will.

Henderson County, as the larger authority, has an obligation to support and uphold the more local authority, Flat Rock, not to overcome it. This is the same idea behind federalism, where the rights of the parts (the states) are over the whole (the national government) in most areas (although not all, think national defense). Of course, this works better in theory than in practice, but just consider the 10^th Amendment:

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.

The same could be said of the relationships among the state and county and village governments. Because the county tried to impose its desire for a soccer complex (for whatever reason) on the village without public hearings or discussion, the village as a whole (see Mayor Staton’s statement) reacted against that imposition. The local authorities have a better understanding of what fits in that location and what those most affected want. The county government, with over 100,000 residents to consider, is not the best mechanism for determining what should go in any particular location unless they are supporting what a more local government wants.

The idea of subsidiarity has been around for ages, but the principles of the concept were developed by the German Roman Catholic theologian and sociologist Oswald von Nell-Breuning (and are outlined in the Catechism in paragraphs 1880-1885). Unlike Individualism or Libertarianism, Subsidiarity assumes that persons are by their nature social beings, and “emphasizes the importance of small and intermediate-sized communities or institutions, like the family, the church, labor unions and other voluntary associations, as mediating structures which empower individual action and link the individual to society as a whole.”

I think we saw an almost perfect illustration of this concept over the past month.