Subsidiarity

= a principle in the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, which gives preference to civil society and lower level groups, that has also been adopted by political bodies such as the European Union

Contextual Quote

"The future belongs to Interoperable Civilizations, i.e., to federations of communities that are sovereign in character but unified in principle. Subsidiarity offers not just a method of governance but a philosophy of freedom, responsibility, and dignity."

- Suzanne, Polis Labs [1]

Definition

"The principle stating that those most closely involved at a particular level of the common good are charged with the immediate responsibility of monitoring and reforming the level of the common good in which they live, work, function, etc. The "Principle of Subsidiarity," is defined by the late social philosopher Rev. William Ferree, S.M., Ph.D. in two parts: First, no higher organization may arrogate to itself a function which a lower organization can adequately perform; second, no lower organization may usurp a higher one for its own particular purposes. In management terms, subsidiarity refers to the delegation of decision-making power over a particular area of operation by those working directly in that area." (http://www.cesj.org/definitions/glossary.html)

Description

From the Wikipedia:

"Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level. The concept is applicable in the fields of government, political science, cybernetics and management. Subsidiarity is, ideally or in principle, one of the features of federalism.

The word subsidiarity is derived from the Latin word subsidiarius and has its origins in Catholic social teaching. The concept or principle is found in several constitutions around the world (see for example the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution).

It is presently best known as a fundamental principle of European Union law. According to this principle, the EU may only act (i.e. make laws) where member states agree that action of individual countries is insufficient. The principle was established in the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht, and is contained within the proposed new Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe. However, at the local level it was already a key element of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, an instrument of the Council of Europe promulgated in 1985 (see Article 4, Paragraph 3 of the Charter)" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity)

Example

Switzerland

Suzanne at Polis Labs:

"Many people may not be aware of how deeply Switzerland embodies the principle of subsidiarity, which is the idea that decisions should be made at the lowest capable level of governance:

- "Under the notion of autonomy, within the framework of laws and constitution, lower units organize themselves and decide how to accomplish their tasks. Higher levels should thus only take over powers of the lower levels when the lower levels are not able to assume their responsibilities or when an overarching solution is absolutely needed." — Andreas Ladner, Switzerland: Subsidiarity, Power-Sharing, and Direct Democracy

In practice, this means that the 2,000+ municipalities in Switzerland, spread across 26 cantons, all handle a wide range of local issues, escalating only what is necessary to cantonal or federal levels. This system has allowed Switzerland to function not as a monolith but as a federation of semi-sovereign communities, much like the ideal many network societies today aim to achieve.

This did not occur easily, though. The modern Swiss state emerged from centuries of conflict, negotiation, comprise, and experimentation. Beginning with the 1291 Federal Charter, small cantons formed alliances based on the need for mutual defense and self-governance. This decentralized federation concept was revolutionary, given the total dominance of absolute monarchies in Europe at the time. But it wasn’t always stable. Religious wars, economic rivalries, and political fragmentation led to frequent upheaval until the post-Sonderbund War reforms in 1848 finally codified a federal constitution. That constitution formalized the subsidiarity principle, shaping what has arguably become one of the world’s most successful multi-level governance systems.

Some early iterations of Swiss governance sandboxes include Geneva’s fusion of civic and religious authority under Calvin, built on a values-driven civic system, and Appenzell’s Landsgemeinde, an open-air vote that embodied direct democracy and hyper-local sovereignty.

Even more striking is how Graubünden’s pluralistic League of the Three Leagues united multiple linguistic communities under a decentralized, yet functional system: a direct historical precursor to the idea that cultural heterogeneity can thrive within federated political frameworks. This last one is a foundational principle of the network state concept, which aims to bring together like-minded individuals from all over the globe."

(https://polislabs.substack.com/p/subsidiarity-and-the-sovereign-village)

Zuzalu and Zuitzerland as examples of Crypto-Subsidiarity

Suzanne at Polis Labs:

"In 2023, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin helped launch Zuzalu, a pop-up city of around 200 people in Montenegro. Designed to last two months, Zuzalu aimed to embody the logic of subsidiarity in real-time. Local pods made decisions, rituals formed organically, and governance emerged from the bottom up. The idea was that participants weren’t just cohabiting, they were co-creating society. While we cannot say whether Vitalik had Switzerland in mind originally with Zuzalu, the Montenegro approach to conflict resolution, infrastructure sharing, and social governance reflected a subsidiarity-first approach.

In 2025, Vitalik and his collaborators took the next step with Zuitzerland, hosted in Switzerland itself. This was both an intentional homage to the nation that pioneered the principles being tested and an experiment with the possibility of building a permanent hub in the country. Drawing on Switzerland’s federalist DNA, Zuitzerland became a larger, more intricate experiment in community building.

Combining the lessons of Switzerland’s historical sandbox with the real-time experiments of Zuzalu and Zuitzerland, our team had the following takeaways:

• Delegate Downward First: Just as in Switzerland, decisions in a network society should ideally start at the community level. Give real authority to clusters of 100–300 people to manage shared resources, set local norms, and resolve disputes. Only escalate when coordination requires it.

• Consider Governance Diversity: Different subcommunities may wish to explore different social contracts, e.g., consensus in one, quadratic voting in another, and reputation-based systems elsewhere. Like the Swiss cantons, allowing for pluralism under a shared constitutional shell could be the way forward.

• Facilitate Norm Formation: Forming shared community norms serves two purposes. First, shared norms build shared meaning, the glue of subsidiarity. Second, a community charter co-created from the bottom up and based on community norms can be used as the foundation for a conflict resolution system based on community consent and not through enforcing rules imposed from top-down authority.

• Modular Infrastructure, Shared Protocols: Invest in core tools that enable autonomy: interoperable ID systems, dispute resolution pathways, digital voting protocols, and transparent budgeting tools. Think of these as your equivalent to Switzerland’s excellent public transit system, serving to connect, but not override."

(https://polislabs.substack.com/p/subsidiarity-and-the-sovereign-village)

Discussion

Subsidiarity is in fact not a sovereignty-related concept

M.R.R. Ossewaarde:

"Unlike sovereignty and federalism, subsidiarity is not an attribute of statehood, but of nature. It is a concept that is alien to both sovereignism and federalism. Sovereign states can be federal or not, but the concepts of sovereignty and subsidiarity in themselves tell us nothing about the distribution of powers within states. Subsidiarity is a scholastic natural law principle of hierarchy that not only applies to states, but also to human bodies, families, churches, villages, forests, seas – in fact, to all things of nature. Subsidiarity has little, if anything to do, with federalist issues of centralization and decentralization (distribution of powers) within states or within the European Union, because it is not an exclusive attribute of statehood. As a principle, subsidiarity only becomes relevant to states, when the state (and its citizens or political animals), like any other community (and its members), is thought of as a feature of nature, as Aristotle and the scholastics believe. Subsidiarity cannot be reconciled with the concept of sovereignty since it does not recognize sovereignty as the defining attribute of statehood or nature. As Paulo Carozza (2003: 69) has recently recognized the rival relationship between the two concepts, “the idea of subsidiarity leaves no room for sovereignty as such”."

Source: Three Rival Versions of Political Enquiry: Althusius and the Concept of Sphere Sovereignty. By M.R.R. Ossewaarde

Appropriateness of scale

Andrew Simms:

"If EF Schumacher's great work on rethinking economics had been called the Principle of Subsidiary Function its audience, I suspect, might not have reached the millions that were touched by Small is Beautiful.

Yet the former is a more accurate description of the concept at the heart of his work and the latter, in spite of being key to his book's success, not only did Schumacher resist, but it became a caricature of his ideas, easier for opponents to dismiss than the subtlety of his actual arguments. Because Schumacher's interest was not in smallness, per se. That would, in every sense of the term, be small-minded. He was interested in "appropriateness of scale".

The more accurate, if cumbersome, term "subsidiarity" he borrowed from the teachings of the Catholic church. In a papal encyclical, Pope Pius XII put it like this: "It is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organisations can do."

Things are best done, in other words, at the smallest appropriate scale. Hence, Schumacher's vision wasn't that everything should be small and local, but that in all things, ranging from decision-making in firms, to growing and distributing food and generating energy, our default position should be toward human scale. In this, the distance between decision and consequence, production and consumption, is kept as short as usefully and practically possible.

Every neighbourhood might, therefore, have its own bakery, but not a factory making trains." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/14/small-is-beautiful-ef-schumacher)

In the Social Doctrine of the Church

From the Compendium on the Social Doctrine of the Church, at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html#Application%20of%20the%20principle%20of%20subsidiarity

"What is Subsidiarity?

“a. Value of civil society

417. The political community is established to be of service to civil society, from which it originates. The Church has contributed to the distinction between the political community and civil society above all by her vision of man, understood as an autonomous, relational being who is open to the Transcendent. This vision is challenged by political ideologies of an individualistic nature and those of a totalitarian character, which tend to absorb civil society into the sphere of the State. The Church’s commitment on behalf of social pluralism aims at bringing about a more fitting attainment of the common good and democracy itself, according to the principles of solidarity, subsidiarity and justice.

Civil society is the sum of relationships and resources, cultural and associative, that are relatively independent from the political sphere and the economic sector. “The purpose of civil society is universal, since it concerns the common good, to which each and every citizen has a right in due proportion”.[853] This is marked by a planning capacity that aims at fostering a freer and more just social life, in which the various groups of citizens can form associations, working to develop and express their preferences, in order to meet their fundamental needs and defend their legitimate interests.

b. Priority of civil society

418. The political community and civil society, although mutually connected and interdependent, are not equal in the hierarchy of ends. The political community is essentially at the service of civil society and, in the final analysis, the persons and groups of which civil society is composed.[854] Civil society, therefore, cannot be considered an extension or a changing component of the political community; rather, it has priority because it is in civil society itself that the political community finds its justification.

The State must provide an adequate legal framework for social subjects to engage freely in their different activities and it must be ready to intervene, when necessary and with respect for the principle of subsidiarity, so that the interplay between free associations and democratic life may be directed to the common good. Civil society is in fact multifaceted and irregular; it does not lack its ambiguities and contradictions. It is also the arena where different interests clash with one another, with the risk that the stronger will prevail over the weaker.

c. Application of the principle of subsidiarity

419. The political community is responsible for regulating its relations with civil society according to the principle of subsidiarity.[855] It is essential that the growth of democratic life begin within the fabric of society. The activities of civil society — above all volunteer organizations and cooperative endeavours in the private-social sector, all of which are succinctly known as the “third sector”, to distinquish from the State and the market — represent the most appropriate ways to develop the social dimension of the person, who finds in these activities the necessary space to express himself fully. The progressive expansion of social initiatives beyond the State- controlled sphere creates new areas for the active presence and direct action of citizens, integrating the functions of the State. This important phenomenon has often come about largely through informal means and has given rise to new and positive ways of exercising personal rights, which have brought about a qualitative enrichment of democratic life.

420. Cooperation, even in its less structured forms, shows itself to be one of the most effective responses to a mentality of conflict and unlimited competition that seems so prevalent today. The relationships that are established in a climate of cooperation and solidarity overcome ideological divisions, prompting people to seek out what unites them rather than what divides them.

Many experiences of volunteer work are examples of great value that call people to look upon civil society as a place where it is possible to rebuild a public ethic based on solidarity, concrete cooperation and fraternal dialogue. All are called to look with confidence to the potentialities that thus present themselves and to lend their own personal efforts for the good of the community in general and, in particular, for the good of the weakest and the neediest. In this way, the principle of the “subjectivity of society” is also affirmed.” ([2])

Additional Citations

MESSAGE OF THE HOLY FATHER JOHN PAUL II TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE SIXTH PLENARY SESSION OF THE PONTIFICAL ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, par 4:

smaller social units — whether nations themselves, communities, ethnic or religious groups, families or individuals — must not be namelessly absorbed into a greater conglomeration, thus losing their identity and having their prerogatives usurped. Rather, the proper autonomy of each social class and organization, each in its own sphere, must be defended and upheld. This is nothing other than the principle of subsidiarity, which requires that a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its rightful functions; (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/2000/jan-mar/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20000223_acd-sciences-plenary_en.html)

INTERVENTION BY THE HOLY SEE AT THE WORLD SUMMIT ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

In keeping with the principle of subsidiarity, the poor must be heard on issues and be at the center of local, national and international programs for sustainable development. Persons living in poverty must be considered as participating subjects. Individuals and peoples cannot become tools but must be the protagonists of their future,9 able to be the "agents of their own development" (http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/secretariat_state/documents/rc_seg-st_doc_20020902_martino-johannesburg_en.html)

More Information

Subsidiarity at Work: a Catholic's Vision of Social Policy http://www.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=1413