Solidarity vs. Subsidiarity

There are two pertinent “principles” that the church has proposed within its social teachings which at first glance may appear contradictory: subsidiarity and solidarity. When the Catholic Church started promulgating its social teaching with Pope Leo XIII in 1891 priority for the social order was given to subsidiarity. However, in the recent development of social teachings since Vatican II (and the era of globalization) the topic of solidarity has gained much more prominence. As we evaluate these two principles we will use the family unit as an illustration of how they are defined.

Subsidiarity states that the smaller segments of society, such as the family, must be duly recognized and allowed to function separately and independently at the level of their own competence. Whenever a task can be done at a lower level of organization, let it be done there, without interference from above. The principle of solidarity represents those benefits and necessities that are only attainable collaboratively, and that pertain to every segment of society in order to live well. This is the common good for which society as a whole is responsible, on whose behalf everyone must work in solidarity. In this scenario, the family unit illustrates subsidiarity at work providing many of its needs. But the common goods, to which every family aspires as well, exceed the reach of the individual family, and so families must join in solidarity with others to gain them. While the family achieves many of its personal or private goods by dint of its own resources, access to the goods common to all requires it to reach out in solidarity with others, both by helping to provide them, and then to enjoy them.

Our question is what value and relationship do these two principles have in light of the globalization and the new cosmology. During the Medieval era, Prior to Newtonian cosmology, the individual was subsumed (although not completely) by the collective identity. In Medieval European society your own value was measured by how it served the body politic or Christendom. Since the Newtonian cosmology the tables were turned and the collective identity was replaced by individual freedom and achievement. From what we can gauge the new cosmology is moving us towards a holistic relationship between these two social forces.

The current laws governing the universe exist in two distinct frameworks. General relativity explains the apparent universal interrelationships that exist in large inter-planetary bodies. Under this framework the Universe is an ordered collective system out there and we all fit neatly into it. But if we look at the law governing the subatomic particles general relativity no longer makes sense. Instead we move towards the field of quantum mechanics and under this system each individual particle exists almost independently and very chaotic with its surroundings. Under this framework the universe seems very random and pointless. But theories such as string theory are emerging as the unifying principle that will bring the individual and the collective together through infinitesimal filaments of energy that have distinct vibrations for every particle but which keeps them all in harmony as a collective whole.

For our theology, subsidiarity is the principle governing the very basic family/social unit (quantum mechanics) while solidarity is the principle that governs the collective interrelationship (general relativity). We are looking for a holistic theological unifying theory that can bring these two principles together.  

Early Christianity may offer us a model for how to integrate these two principles, especially within the religious and family dynamic. As the young Christian faith grew, it found its membership coming from both Judaism and the gentile world. Under the initial influence of St. James, Jewish practices such as circumcision, near and dear to a significant portion of the early converts to Christianity, were also proposed for the gentile converts to the faith, because they meant so much, at least to the Jewish portion of the new Christians, who wanted to preserve a significant presence of their mother religion (Judaism) in their new surroundings. However, it would require the gentile converts to Christianity to reach out to something new and different for them, and St. Paul was less than enthusiastic about this prospect. This expresses the issue of staying with familiar surroundings, or reaching out to the strange and different. A compromise was worked out allowing the Jewish converts to retain certain features of their familiar heritage, such as their Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament), while the gentile element among the new converts was dispensed from circumcision, though they were challenged to accept the Hebrew scriptures (the (Old Testament) as their spiritual sustenance, while being allowed to celebrate the Christian Mysteries (the Eucharist) in the familiar setting of their own homes, since at this early stage the Christian church building was neither conceptualized, or constructed. The best interests of both groups were met by allowing them to continue enjoying the benefits of their origins while stretching them to reach out to new social experiences. The growing Christian family both honored the familiar background of each group, and urged a new social setting on them. 

Later on, St. Paul was to touch on something similar from another angle, that of the growing internal development of Christianity as it flourished and developed. St. Paul noted that, in any organization, some positions are more prominent, enjoying status and outreach, attracting attention, and enjoying new relationships. Such enterprise benefits the entire operation. At the same time, any well-functioning program also depends on smaller and less socially oriented units within itself. St. Paul was anxious to avoid any conflict between the larger and smaller segments of the Christian churches he founded, so he broached the human body as an example of how parts and wholes work together, to their mutual benefit. (1 Cor 12) He contrived a fictitious conversation in which the foot should say: “Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body”. Paul remarks: “it does not for this reason belong any less to the body”. And he goes on: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I do not need you’”, and again comments “…indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary…” And he concludes: “If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it…” St. Paul presents parts and whole as mutually benefitting each other, both by remaining what they are and performing within their own area of competence, and also enriching another part, which would otherwise suffer without help from other parts of the body. This too helps to reflect about fostering the welfare of the family, both by caring for itself, as well as by contributing to society at large. So the family is at one and the same time to look to itself by pursuing its own interests, even while reaching out to engage others: the neighbor, the parishioner, the fellow-worker, the professional and business world, the political scene. Pursuing its own interests need not harm the public sphere but can even benefit it, and showing concern about public affairs need not be so demanding that the family’s private affairs suffer. Indeed, they may be enriched.

A further illustration of this dual concern is assembling a jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle comprises pieces designed to fit together into a whole. The whole is the final product, and it directs the placement and alignment of the various pieces. Each placement is so unique that only one special piece can fit into a given space. There is no way to substitute one piece for another. Each piece is suitable for only one space. The part and the whole go together, since, without the large space, there won’t be any place for the piece to fit, just as no final picture will emerge until each piece finds the space where it belongs.  The family is like one of these puzzle pieces, appreciated for its own qualities, as well as for the part it plays in the whole (society at large) that provides it the big picture, where it finds a fit.

Catholic social teaching has and continues to advance both principles. In the recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI he specifically describes the importance of integrating both principles into a cohesive relationship. In focusing on the issue of International aid the Holy Father describes the danger of an absolute approach to either principles under paragraph 58.

The principle of subsidiarity must remain closely linked to the principle of solidarity and vice versa, since the former without the latter gives way to social privatism, while the latter without the former gives way to paternalist social assistance that is demeaning to those in need.