The Philosophical Foundations of Distributism: Catholic Social Teaching and the Principle of Subsidiarity

It is sometimes difficult to nail down exactly what Distributism is (or entails) as a social and political theory. Nonetheless, it is widely accepted that Distributism is an attempt to develop and apply the Catholic Social Teaching (CST) that began evolving seriously in the nineteenth century through the teaching of Leo XIII and his successors. For instance, in his book Toward a Truly Free Market, John Médaille summarizes his Distributist understanding of the principles of government: “Against the clash of special interests, we assert ‘The Principle of The Common Good’; against the centralizing tendency, we assert ‘The Principle of Subsidiarity’; against the tendency to favor the rich and powerful, we assert ‘The Principle of Solidarity’ ” (ch. 13).1 It seems clear that these three principles— the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity— must be central to the philosophical foundations of any developed Distributist theory.2 Though they are all deeply interrelated and cannot be properly understood apart from one another, in this article, I want to focus on subsidiarity in particular. Without discounting the others, I think subsidiarity is of particular philosophical interest, not least because it has taken on a life of its own in political theorizing outside of Catholic teaching— for instance, in the debates about the structure of the European Union. Even so, to properly understand subsidiarity requires seeing how it developed in the context of CST, which is its true home.3