In the National Catholic Register, Kathryn Jean Lopez looks at the current debate on Social Security and asks: “So, is it a Ponzi scheme? Is it time to blow it up? Are these questions freaking people out — and missing the point?” Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg is extensively quoted in the article. Here he is explaining how the principle of subsidiarity plays into the debate.

“Integral human development requires us to make free choices and to be assisted in doing so to the extent that we are enabled to do so. That means, for instance, that a Social Security system that sought to provide everyone with everything is highly problematic because it destroys and undermines our ability to make free choices. It reduces us to a state of dependency. That is not integral human development.”

Therein enters subsidiarity, which has e an unnecessarily and unhelpfully loaded term in debates about Catholic social teaching and prudential political decisions.

“The way that CST reconciles everyone’s need to make free choices consistent with their vocation, ability and needs and everyone’s need for some form of assistance is through the principle of subsidiarity,” Gregg explains. es from the Latin subsidium, which means to assist. … [It] bines axioms of noninterference and assistance. It follows that when a case of assistance and coordination through law or the government proves necessary, the munity should accord as much respect as possible to the rightful autonomy of the assisted person munity. The primary significance of this principle thus lies … in the fact that this autonomy is essential if people are to flourish as persons.”

Read “Stewarding Social Security to a Secure Future” on NCR.