the class is not suspect and subj to strict scrutiny unless the ct finds there is intent to discrimiate
2.    intent:
a.    explict
b.    facially netural but administered discriminator
c.    discriminatory as applied (not disproportionate impact, but …

The simple distributist response to Jeff is of course that subsidiarity involves the State helping coordinate local government rather than (despite its being necessarily ill-informed) directing it “from the top”. Subsidiarity is not delegation from above, but rather the opposite of that. Contrary to subsidiarity and I suspect unconstitutionally, State-level governments are now increasingly delegating government functions to unaccountable and profit-seeking private corporations like the Federal Reserve Bank.

Clare, delighted though I am by your appreciation of solidarity and subsidiarity, I would like to remind you that when we look at something outside yourself, we have to allow for the fact that its “handedness” appears to be the opposite of our own. When one is in a stationary railway coach next to another, it is not obvious which one moves first. A Copernican revolution was necessary before we realised that the sun does not traverse the heavens every day: it is the earth which is rotating. What I want to suggest is that similar “Copernican revolutions” are necessary to understand both that money (now obviously) represents debt rather than stored value, and that central government should be an advisory service rather than a power structure (for only those affected by law can judge its relevance and that of any apparent lack of discipline). From this, solidarity is required if we are to insist on the truth of these interpretations determining the Constitution, thereby drawing the teeth of the legal enforcement of financial institutions and company laws which are currently undermining genuine subsidiarity.

The freedom to be gained by this is our being able to do what is appropriate, whether or not that is within the norms advised by absent legislators. Perhaps the first advice an advisory government needs to give is that communities from primary schools up need to replace the concept of Economic Man with an understanding of the advantages of us all being different. If the Mystical Body of Christ does not appeal, we have Aristotle’s model of diverse musicians of more or less equal status creating harmonious music in an orchestra.

This dimension opens up the possibilities for a greater nuanced approach to these issues because it forces us to examine the basis, source and sustaining necessities of generosity and gift in society.

Out of these necessities will, hopefully, emerge a more anthropologically sound approach to the question of economic and political order.

It is the family, and intermediary organizations where the possibility for a third way opens up and breaks down the hegemony written about by the pope.

The lecture was part of the Culture of Enterprise series: http://www.cultureofenterprise.com

out of Korea, so thought I’d link to it here by way of rhetorical inquiry: how could our inner cities be helped by principles (whatever they would be “TBD” I hesitate to quip) of distributism? Tabula rasa, start from scratch Utopias (Mondragon et al) aren’t likely to be forthcoming amidst the detritus many Americans call “home”, so how might we homestead the urban-blighted Front Porch?

Having volunteered years ago with Habitat for Humanity in Philadelphia, the bureacratic overheads are an insurmountable barrier-to-entry for most citizens budgets. Where theres a will theres a way doesn’t help much, when the wrong way is chosen (attractive tracts are aggregated by the violence of eminent domain expropriating low-income residents to benefit suburban real estate magnates who build profitable condominiums for Yuppies – every man a homeowner, just some homeowners are more worthy than others? Well, to the deeply-indebted city, yes, a revenue-generating citizen is worth more than a revenue-depleting citizen in the logical positivist economics of empiricism. That’s the “price” we pay for leveraging outstanding liens as investment vehicles, the city must collect to pay back their creditors, and if you happen to live on the same street as too many abandoned residences of tax-cheats well, too bad, the “greater good” trumps private property.

How would solidarity and subsidiarity if exercised correctly avert these intractable circumstances? Are taxes a hard currency? No. From the principle of solidarity, a municipality is munificent only to the degree the munis (money in common) reaches all members fairly, not advancing some at the expense of others (eminent domain only for matter of life/death not commercial utility). Here is where the US dollar fails abjectly. It is not produced munificently, but selectively. The branch of commerce that goes by the FIRE acronym is privileged to receive new money first, all other money users must stand in line to reconcile our accounts in the inflated prices made possible with the newly minted money (a form of embezzelment or fraud that Papa Benedetto decries as “Betrug” in his German original (65) “Die Finanzmakler müssen die eigentlich ethische Grundlage ihrer Tätigkeit wieder entdecken, um nicht jene hoch entwickelten Instrumente zu mißbrauchen, die dazu dienen können, die Sparer zu betrügen” but rendered with less candor in English “Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers.”). Poor Americans have to stop granting the Government eminent domain to our pocket books (and poor Californians may need to resort to inventing some form of scrip to avoid being duped by the taxes-as-hard currency IOUs that are now in circulation there).

Secondly, from subsidiarity, a municipality can only be munificent to the extent they can recruit subscribers to a good greater than by mere private association, budgets must match actual revenue realized not an imaginary aggregate of levied assessments. The degree to which citizens share in their duty to pay taxes is the degree of solidarity that can fuel public services. an irresolute populace deserves only meager services, a consolidated populace would engender better-developed services, here one thinks of Papa Benedetto’s suggestion at (60) in CiV

“One possible approach to development aid would be to apply effectively what is known as fiscal subsidiarity, allowing citizens to decide how to allocate a portion of the taxes they pay”

The riddle we face is one of creating a rebellious spirit toward realizing that we are our brothers keeper. These kinds of contradictions are not looked on kindly by the reductionist State. Then again , the State obviously cannot even look out for its own welfare and so it would seem that Ed Abbey is entirely correct in his assertion that “when the situation is hopeless, there is nothing to worry about”.

The Buzzards are about to see full employment. At least, most unlike the State, they only eat the dead and not the living.

A third choice is too restrict the rights of corporations to no more than the citizens and give them the same responsibilities as citizens. Once there is actual risk in investing in corporations, then you will see that investment, the associated corporate tyranny, diminish. Governments will no longer have to do battle with corporate interests, this should allow the people to reduce the size and interference of government.

This is going to be a real dog fight. With multinational corporations having the size and power that exceeds that of many county’s government, a coordinated effort will be needed. (I think that is where Pope Benedict is coming from when he calls for a world wide organization with teeth.) The scary bit is once you have reigned in corporate power, we will have to reign in government. Otherwise it is just socialism.