Rene Henry Gracida, Bishop Emeritus of Corpus Christi, opines:
The principle of subsidiarity was evidently ignored by those holding responsibility for the government of the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans. This principle was first clearly defined by Pope John XXIII and then later by the Second Vatican Council. The principle is valid for both the secular as well as the ecclesiastical realm. The principle of subsidiarity is the principle by which those in authority recognize the rights of the different members of society. Those in higher authority respect the rights of those in lower authority. And of course, with rights go responsibilities.
MOJ blogger Rob Vischer takes a more expansive view, opining:
In the case of Katrina, I think there's plenty of blame to go around at both the local and federal levels. I do agree with Carter, though, that conservatives often invoke subsidiarity without acknowledging its full import, an argument I've made elsewhere. (This is not to excuse liberals, who tend to ignore subsidiarity completely.)
The "Carter" to whom Rob refers is evangelical blogger Joe Carter who observes:
According to the principle of subsidiarity, governmental agencies and leaders at the city, parish, and state agencies hold primary responsibility for implementing the evacuation process. The city of New Orleans apparently agrees, since in their “Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan” they vest the authority to authorize an evacuation with the Mayor and the implementation of such an action with the city’s Office of Emergency Preparedness. The state’s official hurricane evacuation plan even notes that the primary means of evacuation will be personal vehicles but that school and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles, and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating. ...
Principles such as subsidiarity, federalism, and limited government are often considered cornerstones of conservative political thought. But when it comes to their actual implementation they are merely given lip-service. While aspiring young politicos sing the praises of states-rights, they prefer to do so on Capital Hill or in D.C. think tanks rather than in the choirs of their state legislatures or local governments. The very idea that our most competent conservative statesmen should be working in their actual states rather than in Washington is considered ludicrous. After all, everyone knows that state and local governments are reserved for the also-rans and has-beens rather than for the able and ambitious. Any job in FEMA, for instance, is considered superior to working in the New Orleans’s Office of Emergency Preparedness.
I agree with the second paragraph from Joe's post, as well as the view that both he and the Bishop express with respect to who has immediate and initial responsibility, but on the general application of the subsidiarity principle am closest to what I take to be Rob's position.
The principle of subsidiarity, I believe, derives from the Church’s understanding that Leviathan and community are incompatible. Communities cannot be created from without; they must be built from within, as Richard Epstein observed somewhere or another, but they easily “can be destroyed from without.” Subsidiarity thus teaches that to empower higher authorities as anything but second-best solutions or even last resorts endangers the rights and liberties of those who are most affected.
At the same time, however, subsidiarity also teaches that higher authority properly intervenes when 4 conditions are met:
- The first, the ‘sufficiency criterion,’ states that smaller institutions or individuals alone will not be able to solve the problem. Help is required from a larger body.
- The second, the ‘benefit criterion,’ states that intervention by a higher authority should bring greater benefit than the smaller institutions alone could have achieved.
- The third, the ‘close to the citizen criterion,’ states that action should be taken in close cooperation with locally affected individuals.
- The fourth, the ‘autonomy criterion,’ dictates that the intervention of a higher power must secure greater freedom for individuals.
Disaster relief pretty clearly satisfies all 4 conditions for national governmental action in my view. Local communities have responsibilities, but quickly can be overwhelmed. The greater resources of the national government likely can do things the local and state authorities cannot. The national government can and should closely work with local, state, and private parties. What more basic freedom is there than the necessities of survival?
The fact that subsidiarity doesn't preclude national involvement, of course, doesn't answer the question of the form that involvement should take. Personally, I think as a prudential matter we should be looking very seriously at outsourcing disaster relief. See my TCS column and followup blog post.
