What Ryan Missed: What

Catholic social teaching says

about solidarity and
subsidiarity
www.americamagazine.org
7 mins read

T
he U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has rightly criticized
Paul Ryan’s proposed draconian cuts to social programs that
aid the poor. Catholic scholars rebuked Ryan for claiming
that his budget reflects principles of Catholic social teaching. Ryan
deserves credit for elevating Catholic social teaching to a central
place in the discussion. Unfortunately, he badly misunderstands two
bedrock principles of CST—solidarity and subsidiarity. He also
misinterprets how these principles apply to the scourge of poverty in
the United States.

Ryan correctly identifies one aspect of solidarity, namely the

“recognition of the common ties that unite all human beings in equal
dignity,” as he puts it. However, Catholic social teaching adopted the
view of Heinrich Pesch, S.J., (1854-1926) and Oswald von Nell-
Breuning S.J., (1890-1991), who envisioned three aspects of
solidarity: 1) solidarity as de facto human interdependence; 2)
solidarity as an ethical imperative; and 3) solidarity as a principle
concretized in legislative policies and institutions.

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By its very nature, solidarity requires advocating social change on the

structural level. This is the case because eliminating the causes of the
suffering of the wounded and oppressed requires embodying
solidarity in social policies and institutions. In other words, solidarity
includes but goes beyond charity to promote justice and human
rights, particularly by empowering the marginalized. Charity is
important, but never sufficient to meet the needs of the poor, as Pope
Benedict reminds us in Caritas in Veritate. Christians must thus foster
the common good through “the institutional path—we might also call
it the political path—of charity, no less excellent and effective than
the kind of charity which encounters the neighbor directly.” As John
Paul II argued, the entire social, economic and political order should
be shaped by the principle of solidarity.

In his speech at Georgetown University, Ryan claimed that “Civil

public dialogue goes to the heart of solidarity, the virtue that does not
divide society into classes and groups but builds up the common good
of all.” There is a grain of truth here. Solidarity does aim to allow all
people to participate in and benefit from the common good. As the
philosopher Fr. Józef Tischner of the Polish Solidarnosc
movementargued, solidarity excludes no one. However, Pope John
Paul II, who developed the concept of solidarity more than any other
pope, acknowledged “the positive role of conflict” when it “takes the
form of a struggle for social justice.” He also stated solidarity
sometimes requires taking the side of the poor when their rights and
welfare are jeopardized. Thus, solidarity does not imply “a live and
let live” approach to politics; it makes demands of all of us. Solidarity
does not seek to vanquish oppressors, but it always insists on the
truth and challenges oppressors to see themselves for what they are,
as Tischner maintained.

Government Is Not the Problem

Ryan also attempts to enfeeble solidarity by flanking it with the

principle of subsidiarity. Ryan approvingly cites Pope Benedict’s claim
that “… subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form of
all-encompassing welfare state.” But Ryan fails to acknowledge the
positive side of subsidiarity. When possible, it is better for smaller,
local groups to solve their own problems. However, Catholic social
teaching posits that larger entities, including governments, have a
responsibility to assist individuals and communities when they
cannot effectively solve their own problems.

Subsidiarity, therefore, does not support Ryan’s libertarian

“government is the problem” approach. Official Catholic social
teaching has long accorded a positive role for the government in
protecting the economic rights and well-being of people. The
principle of subsidiarity was developed to ensure that governments
work in tandem with individuals and local groups to promote the
common good. In other words, subsidiarity protects the right and
duty of participation. Persons cannot fulfill their right and duty to
participation if they suffer from poverty, discrimination,
unemployment, untreated illnesses, etc. Both civil society and the
state have the responsibility to create the conditions for the full
participation of all in the common good. In the words of Pope John
XXIII, “intervention of public authorities that encourages, stimulates,
regulates, supplements, and complements, is based on the principle of
subsidiarity.”
Contrary to Ryan’s imagination, the current pope has not embraced
modern-day laissez faire capitalism or neoliberalism. Rather, Pope
Benedict sees the redistribution of wealth through government
programs as a necessary fulfillment of subsidiarity, given neoliberal
capitalism's strong tendency to generate vast inequality and large
swaths of poverty. At times, the pope even sounds a lot like Occupy
Wall Street, albeit in slightly more Vaticanese terms: “grave
imbalances are produced when economic action, conceived merely as
an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action,
conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution.”

The pontiff clearly sees a robust role for government, which does not
violate the principle of subsidiarity. In addition to wealth
redistribution, governments should promote full employment and
oversee multiple levels of institutions to ensure access to sufficient
food and water. Benedict also decries the slashing of social safety nets
and the evisceration of labor unions, which has jeopardized the rights
of the poor and workers. He laments erosion of the “solidarity
associated with the traditional forms of the social State.” If that
doesn’t vex Paul Ryan and Catholic neoconservatives enough, the
pope contends that globalization must be governed by authorities at
the local, national and international levels in order to foster
“economic democracy.”

Those looking to the Polish pope, whom neoconservatives mistakenly

dubbed unabashedly pro-capitalist, will search in vain. John Paul II
contended governments should not thwart citizens’ efforts to assuage
the needs of the poor. However, the state should provide support
when necessary. Moreover, the state can take on the lion’s share of
responsibility of providing for the rights and welfare of its citizens
when intermediary groups cannot fulfill this role (Centesimus Annus,
no 48).

What does subsidiarity look like in the current American context?

Take the case of job creation and the right to work. Private employers
directly enable the fulfillment of this right by providing jobs. But the
state must provide the legal, economic and social frameworks
necessary for the realization of this right. As John Paul claimed, “the
state has a duty to sustain business activities by creating conditions
which will ensure job opportunities, by stimulating those activities
where they are lacking or by supporting them in moments of crisis”
(emphasis mine). The American Jobs Act, decried by Paul Ryan as
excessive government, attempts to do just this.

Subsidiarity in Action

In the area of social welfare, the popes envisioned government

supporting local groups and agencies and directly assisting the needy
as necessary. This is exactly what the U.S. government does today. In
fact, the government enables Catholic organizations (and many
others) to engage in various works of mercy. Over the last two years,
the government increased funding levels for this purpose, even
allocating federal stimulus money to faith-based charities. In 2010
Catholic Charities alone received about $2.9 billion from the federal
government, which is 62 percent of its entire budget. Lutheran Social
Services of Minnesota, like most of its counterparts around the
country, relied on the government for about 80 percent of its
revenue. This is the principal of subsidiarity in action. The
government supports those who can best provide not only material
assistance, but also respond to “deeper human need,” as John Paul put
it.

Ryan believes that the government’s role in combatting poverty

should be radically reduced, leaving the taxpayer to do as she or he
pleases with her income and assets. He disregards Catholicism’s
insistence on the universal destination of all goods and the duty to
contribute to the common good by paying taxes in proportion to one’s
ability. In Ryan’s words, “basic economics and basic morality both tell
us that people have a right to keep and decide how to spend their
hard-earned dollars.” The fate of the poor, in this view, should be
largely left to private organizations.

Can churches, synagogues, mosques and other NGO’s sufficiently rise

to the task, using only charitable donations? Not according to
economist Robert Reich. Only about 10 percent of all charitable
contributions aid the poor, Reich says. The rest (about $40 billion in
tax breaks for charitable giving) goes to maintaining religious
organizations (properties, salaries, etc.), the arts and universities
(which, as I have written elsewhere, increasingly exclude the poor).
Moreover, Ronald Sider demonstrates in Fixing the Moral Deficit: A
Balanced Way to Balance the Budget that private initiatives provide
only 6 percent of all food assistance in the United States. Replacing
the federal government’s $485 billion dollar antipoverty programs
would require every U.S. congregation to contribute an additional
$1.5 million dollars. Sider therefore concludes that “churches should
do more, but they cannot begin to replace” the federal government in
addressing poverty.

As Ryan acknowledged, the level of poverty today in the United States

constitutes “exceptional circumstances,” to use John Paul II’s phase.
The amount of need is so great—1 in 6 Americans experience poverty
according to Ryan’s Georgetown speech—that charitable organizations
cannot possibly meet it. In other words, ameliorating the situation
requires direct government involvement, in addition to facilitating
the work of organizations like Catholic Charities.

Demystifying the Causes of Poverty

Ryan provides the wrong solutions to poverty for two reasons. As I

have argued, he misinterprets solidarity and subsidiarity. He also
misunderstands poverty’s causes in the United States. Contrary to
Ryan's contention, the causes of poverty are not rooted in an
expansive government and a culture of dependency on hand-outs.
Rather, it is rooted in government’s failure to perform its duties in
accordance with the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity. In other
words, “smaller government” caused the problem.

First, the welfare reform of 1996 precipitated a substantial rise in

poverty. A new report from the National Poverty Center concludes
that households living in extreme poverty—less than $2 a
day—increased by 130 percent to 1.46 million. The number of children
suffering the same fate doubled to 2.8 million. According to the
report, “this growth has been concentrated among those groups that
were most affected by the 1996 welfare reform.” A recent New York
Times article highlighted the human costs, stating that those dropped
from welfare rolls—mainly single mothers—resorted to desperate
measures to survive. “They have sold food stamps, sold blood,
skipped meals, shoplifted, doubled up with friends, scavenged trash
bins for bottles and cans and returned to relationships with violent
partners—all with children in tow.”

Many people lucky enough to have steady jobs earn “poverty wages.”
Seventy-five percent of the working-age adult poor have jobs. As the
Economic Policy Institute reports, steady gains in productivity over
several decades have translated into more wealth for stockholders,
but little gain for many wage-earners.

In addition, the government failed to adequately regulate the

financial sector, which led to the economic collapse of 2008.
Unemployment skyrocketed, in turn swelling the level of poverty. As
Simon Johnson and James Kwak argue in their acclaimed book, 13
Bankers: “the failure to regulate not only derivatives, but many other
financial innovations, made possible a decade-long financial frenzy
that ultimately create the worst financial crisis and deepest recession
the world has endured since World War II.”

Finally, the rising U.S debt is not the cause of poverty, nor does it
threaten social protections for the poor in the way Ryan contends.
Economist Charles Clark has debunked this debunked this myth,
calling for the virtue of truth telling to augment solidarity and
subsidiarity in the discussion of the federal budget. Clark’s essay
explains in more detail than possible here why the economics of
Ryan’s claims are false.

We should be grateful that Paul Ryan has reintroduced the concepts

of solidarity and subsidiarity to our political discourse. Now we need
to make sure they remain there, and that we understand and embody
them in a way faithful to the Catholic tradition.
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