Against Subsidiarity: Communism’s Error
Communism and subsidiarity don’t just disagree on a few policy details; they clash at the level of vision. Communism dreams of a society where property, power, and key decisions are pulled upward into the hands of a centralized authority, usually the state or the party. Subsidiarity, by contrast, insists that the most important work in society should be done as close to the person and the family as possible, with larger institutions stepping in only when truly necessary — and then stepping back again. The result is that communism and subsidiarity are not two parallel paths, but two opposing directions.
The Catholic tradition is very clear about this. The Catechism warns against “excessive intervention” by the state, noting that it “threatens personal freedom and initiative” and can “suppress social bodies” that are truly necessary. It praises the “principle of subsidiarity,” stating that a higher authority should not interfere in the internal life of a lower community, but should support and coordinate it when needed, always aiming at the common good (see CCC 1883). It also warns that excessive state intervention can threaten personal freedom and initiative (see CCC 1884). In plain terms, larger institutions are meant to help smaller ones flourish, not swallow them whole.
That is where communism runs in the opposite direction. Rather than asking what families, churches, neighborhoods, and local institutions can do on their own, communism tends to begin with a grand centralized program and then force every part of society to serve it. The result is that the smaller communities closest to the person lose their proper authority. Instead of being respected as real societies with their own dignity and purpose, they are treated as parts of a machine.
This becomes especially serious when we look at the family. The Catechism calls the family “the original cell of social life” and teaches that it has a unique and prior role in the upbringing and education of children (see CCC 2207; see also CCC 2221-2229). Subsidiarity takes that truth seriously by recognizing that parents are not delegates of the state. They have their own God-given duties and rights. Communism, however, has often treated the family as something to be managed, weakened, or subordinated whenever it stands in the way of the ideological aims of the regime.
The same pattern applies to churches, schools, unions, charities, and civic associations. Subsidiarity sees these as essential layers of social life, places where people learn responsibility, cooperation, and love of neighbor. The Catechism teaches that God did not will to reserve all exercise of power to higher authorities alone, and that the principle of subsidiarity is opposed to every form of collectivism (see CCC 1885). That line could hardly be more direct. A collectivist system like communism does not strengthen the rich fabric of society; it tends to flatten it.
This is why communism can rightly be described as the opposite of subsidiarity. Where subsidiarity protects the person by protecting the smaller communities around him, communism tends to absorb those communities into a central plan. Where subsidiarity says higher powers must serve lower ones, communism says lower ones must yield to higher control. And where subsidiarity trusts that human dignity grows through responsibility, communism too often trusts only the system. One sees society as a living order of families and communities; the other risks turning it into a structure of control.
