On the Constitution of Authority, the Competence of Subsidiarity in Consent Maximization and the Necessity of Structural Reform

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to provide a framework for discovering, measuring and correcting the deviations of our society from the ideal. Part I will begin this inquiry by examining the nature of authority and the relationship between the government and the people in a society recreated as though it were predicated on equality. This inquiry will conclude that law, government and society ideally exist to maximize the consent of the governed by minimizing the conflict between individual and collective autonomies. Part II will then begin the segue from theory to application by digressing into subsidiarity, one of the most important facets of the distribution and maintenance of authority. It will survey the origin and development of subsidiarity as it is commonly understood and applied, or rejected, in the systems of the European Union, the Council of Europe, the Federal Republic of Germany, the United States and others.Out of this survey, Part II will propose a more natural and meaningful interpretation of subsidiarity as the allocation of authority among society that most efficiently and effectively minimizes the conflict between individual and collective autonomies, maximizing the common good and consent of the governed. Part II will conclude that subsidiarity in this broader sense represents much more than mere advocacy of local governance and that proper implementation of subsidiarity is essential to maximizing collective majorities and individual liberties. Part III will briefly study the implicit search for subsidiarity in the United States since its founding, and, in particular, the ad-hoc, opaque and, often undemocratic, character of that search. Part III will then assess the current failings of this search thus far, especially as they relate to critical conflicts of interest and barriers of entry to information, cooperation and participation within the system.Part IV will conclude that there is substantial deviation of our society from the ideal and therefore that society must begin anew an expansive search for broad structural reform able to realign society with subsidiarity and maximizing the consent of the governed. A search which must identify and acknowledge the flaws of society; rather than blaming flaws on the participants, the system must internalize the multifaceted hopes and fears of humanity itself.