Subsidiarity

The measure of all social activity is the individual person.

The only reason that higher levels of social organization are formed is to secure goods to the lower levels that form them.  It would be wrong for those lower levels to be subsumed into the higher levels.

When raising a child, healthy parents are careful not to do anything the child can do for himself.  In the same way, healthy governments will do nothing but what cannot be done by any lower level of organization.  Clearly, it is an abuse when the federal government becomes involved in feeding a family.  Even a troubled family can move to a new independence with the help of friends or a church.

When government does what is the province of others, it necessarily abandons, at least in part, activities that are proper to it.  Is it surprising that our government, so heavily involved in the minutiae of our daily lives, has found it impossible to maintain a stable currency and border integrity?