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Shelf of probably-not-obscene children's books at Trailside School library |
David T. Koyzis (Political Visions and Illusions: A Survey and Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies [InterVarsity, 2003]) defines subsidiarity as the belief that "wherever possible, tasks are to be fulfilled by the lowest conceivable element in the social hierarchy" (2003: 218). He quotes Pope Pius XI, whose 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno Koyzis credits with first articulating the concept:
Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice... to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body [politic] and never destroy and absorb them.
Here at Holy Mountain, we are all about furnishing help to the members of the body politic, not to mention the knowledge that comes when diverse people are doing diverse things, so of course we are down with subsidiarity. Assuming voices are equal and individual rights respected--these are big assumptions, I realize--and that the capacity exists, citizens of local places should be charting their own courses, drawing in higher levels of government only when absolutely necessary.
In our fondness for subsidiarity, we are joined by such urbanist icons as Jane Jacobs and Chuck Marohn. Jacobs, whose book Dark Age Ahead (Random House, 2004) I reviewed here, argued in chapter five that governmental powers that are exercised and taxes collected by distant, national governments instead of those directly in touch with people's needs and possibilities were eroding a core pillar of our culture.
The social and economic needs of urban residents and businesses are extremely varied and complex compared with those of simpler settlements. They require wide ranges of awareness and knowledge that are humanly beyond the comprehension of functionaries in distant institutions, who try to overcome that handicap by devising programs that disregard particulars on the assumption that one size can fit all, which is untrue. Even when sovereignties and provinces or states give special grants to this or that locality, the special grants almost always reflect the priorities of the disbursing institutions, not those of the recipient settlements. (2004: 105)
The Roman Empire's extracting wealth from cities "for schemes and needs according to its own, frequently crazed, priorities" (2004: 103) led to the medieval Dark Age; city-level innovations and economic activity began the long process of digging out. (Maybe such innovation can produce similarly happy results in America, too? I just hope it doesn't take 500 years.)
In 2020 I spent several posts chatting about Marohn's book Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity (Wiley 2020). In chapter nine, he argued that local governments with restored decision-making power could make more rational decisions, and wouldn't have to rely for needed revenue on sprawl (or business subsidies, or game-changing projects, ...).
State and federal officials frequently express their reluctance to turn over decison-making to local officials they view as incompetent, ignorant, or worse. They fail to recognize how turning city councils into glorified dog catchers, by simplifying their authority and degree of action, Congress and state legislatures have created the conditions where the most competent, innovative, and dynamic local leaders tend to stay away from city hall. (2020: 197)
Local communities won't always make great decisions, even when they're in the best position to decide. But, Marohn concluded, local responsibility for local conditions will improve the quality of policy decisions. "By remaking local government to focus on the broad creation of wealth, local leaders will develop the capacity to assert their own competence. America needs this to happen" (2020: 198). (See also Marohn 2017 on how cities' dependence on national government funding got them into this predicament.)
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Earlier version of proposed Cedar Rapids casino: City officials' relentless advocacy is not the best advertisement for subsidiarity |
Subsidiarity, like balanced budgets or checks and balances, is easier to get behind when someone other than you is trying to do something. But this year the news is full of local places trying to solve their own problems and getting shot down by higher levels of government. In Cedar Rapids, our mayor is fond of saying "Welcome is our language," but threatened with the loss of $306 million in federal money we shut down our diversity efforts faster than you can say "King Trump" (Hanson 2025).
Trump's Department of Transportation acted February 19 to revoke approval for New York City's first-in-the-nation congestion pricing program (Duggan 2025). Based on successful implementation in several European cities, the city was attempting to collect some of the social costs of traffic congestion by charging a fee on cars entering the core of Manhattan. Two months into the program, congestion and traffic deaths had both noticeably declined, while the city's transit system got an infusion of much-needed revenue. Trump argued that it threatened to draw visitors and business away from the city, which seems like a problem for the city itself to sort out. (It was this action that led him to post "LONG LIVE THE KING!" in characteristic self-praise.)
The Iowa state legislature has for years had a similar penchant for micromanaging local governments. A recent hobbyhorse has been books in community libraries that someone might consider "obscene." A 2023 law already prohibits "sexual descriptions" in school library books (Cheng and Gerlock 2025); a new bill aims to eliminate exemptions for "appropriate educational materials" in school and public libraries from state obscenity laws (Luu 2025). Neither the standards of obscenity nor who will decide on books is made clear in the legislation, possibly in hopes that libraries will censor themselves. Libraries are run by professionals, and are overseen by city councils and school districts. Who does Rep. Helena Hayes (R-Mahaska), sponsor of this latest salvo, think she is protecting us from?
The through lines that connect these two initiatives (and too many others) are rejection of community initiatives uncontrolled from above. Commenting on U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy's efforts to reorient federal transportation spending around marriage, birth rates, and motor vehicles, Lyz Lenz argues
It’s about isolating people into nuclear family units that have little connection to how people actually derive joy and happiness; cutting them off with the work of family and home. This isolation means the inability to act, to organize, to change. It makes it harder to create any communities, social ties or mutual aid — any meaningful connection outside heterosexual marriage. (Lenz 2025)
What traditionalists see as weird and threatening can prove adaptive to the many challenges we face as a country and as a species. But America in 2025 seems to be responding to these challenges with a gigantic act of self-mutilation, led nationally by Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and cheered on by their many fans. Cities, those scruffy diverse and exciting places, might save us yet, but only if the judgy haters in Des Moines and Washington go soak their heads and leave them to it.
SEE ALSO:
The War on Cars podcast episode on congestion pricing, 27 February 2025 (1:04)
American Library Association page on banned and challenged books