Ron Paul recently appeared on The Colbert Report. To be honest, I feel more affinity for Ron Paul than I do for any other candidate. Though I think many people associate ‘anarchism’ with left-leaning politics, my personal support of Catholic anarchism (to use a dreaded label) is more rooted in libertarianism and federalism. I grew up hearing the conservative refrain, “the government is best that governs least,” and I believe it. This principle is summed up and modified nicely by the Church’s social doctrine of subsidiarity:
The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to certain forms of centralization, bureaucratization, and welfare assistance and to the unjustified and excessive presence of the State in public mechanisms. “By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.” . . .
Subsidiarity, understood in the positive sense as economic, institutional or juridical assistance offered to lesser social entities, entails a corresponding series of negative implications that require the State to refrain from anything that would de facto restrict the existential space of the smaller essential cells of society. Their initiative, freedom and responsibility must not be supplanted.
– Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church
In other words – higher institutions are created to serve lower institutions. What people can do for themselves, they ought to do. When people can’t do something for themselves and need help – that’s when higher institutions should step in. Institutions ought to support individuals, not supplant them. As I understand it, Catholic anarchism isn’t about disorder and disorganization. It is about the Gospel’s call to transform power into service, it is about replacing domination with coordination. There is a reason that one of the Pope’s many titles is servant of the servants.
Watch Ron Paul and Colbert deliver a stunning performance. My favorite line… “It is dissent from government policies that defines the true patriot and the champion of liberty.”
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