On Localism and Subsidiarity

E.J. Dionne Jr.

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. titles today's column "Don’t let politics dumb you down." The column asks us to get back to thinking and debating seriously about our politics, rather than just forever chastising Donald Trump's latest tweet. One key to doing so, says Mr. Dionne, is to get involved with the new "localism" in America:

As Washington politics becomes increasingly rancid, a disheartened nation turns toward the many good things happening at the grass roots. In cities and towns across the country, civic and political leaders are — honest and true! — solving problems and finding new missions for old places. Words like “rebuilding,” “reclaiming” and “renewing” are the stuff of local life.

David Brooks

Mr. Dionne points out that op-ed writer David Brooks of The New York Times has also been championing localism of late, as, for instance, in his recent column "The Localist Revolution." In it, Mr. Brooks writes:

Localism is the belief that power should be wielded as much as possible at the neighborhood, city and state levels. Localism is thriving — as a philosophy and a way of doing things — because the national government is dysfunctional while many towns are reviving. Politicians in Washington are miserable, hurling ideological abstractions at one another, but mayors and governors are fulfilled, producing tangible results.

Solving problems. Tangible results. Aren't these supposed to be exactly what politics and government are all about?

Mr. Dionne cautions us that we need to keep in mind, "as many localists do, that some problems require national action. We’re better off having a federal Social Security and Medicare program, and it will take a comparable effort to get health insurance to everyone."

Mr. Dionne's attitude here reminds me of the principle of social organization called "subsidiarity," to wit, that "social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate (or local) level that is consistent with their resolution." Subsidiarity is familiar to me, as a Catholic, as the general belief that "matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority."

George Weigel

I originally learned about that big word, "subsidiarity," from the writings of Catholic essayist-ethicist George Weigel, who is about as conservative as a thinking Catholic can be — and much more conservative than I am. In an anti-Trump 2016 column, "Resisting the Demagogue," Mr. Weigel wrote:

There is nothing remotely Catholic about the Trump sensibility. There is nothing in Mr. Trump’s record or his current campaign to suggest that he gives a fig for the life issues, for religious freedom in full, or for the constitutionalism that is America’s unique expression of Catholic social doctrine’s principle of subsidiarity. Rather than lifting us above anger to renewed common purpose, Mr. Trump is dragging our politics even deeper into the muck ...

In general terms, Mr. Weigel impresses me as being to the political right of Mr. Brooks, while Mr. Dionne is clearly to Mr. Brooks's left. Yet all three champion some form of localism/subsidiarity. All this tells me that the idea of localism/subsidiarity might well constitute the fundamental solution to all our political woes today.