Subsidiarity vs. Single Payer

In his article, “Subsidiarity and the Single Payer,” Jack Quirk argues that a Single Payer system for health care services is consistent with the principles of subsidiarity and Catholic Social Teaching. He concludes his article by stating that the “principle of subsidiarity cannot legitimately be used to argue against a single-payer healthcare system. … Those who argue against it will need to avail themselves of something outside of Catholic social teaching for support.” His argument seems to depend on two points which I think are incorrect. The first is that the question of subsidiarity “does not turn on jurisdiction, but on competence. Subsidiarity is not federalism.” The second is the fact that some health care services are very expensive, and the fact that health insurers in the United States lack the power to contain those costs, means that the highest level of government has the right and responsibility, according to the principles of subsidiarity, to step in to assist paying for all health care services. This response is an explanation of why I believe he is wrong on both points.

Distributism and Capitalism: Some contrasting features - Part 2

by Thomas Storck

Continued from Part 1

There are many supposed facts of economic life that any student of economics, or even any observer of political and economic news, is familiar with, matters such as unemployment, corporate mergers and acquisitions, labor relations, business cycles, and so on. I call these supposed facts, not because they do not exist, but because their existence is contingent upon man-made economic arrangements, such as laws and tax structures or even cultural norms. Contrary to the impression one takes from writings both of professional economists as well as from journalists, these things and events are not natural and necessary facts like the changing of the seasons or the daily rising of the sun. They need not exist, certainly at least not to the extent that they do in a capitalist economy. Let us take one of the items from the above list, business cycles, and consider it more carefully.

Distributism and Capitalism: Some contrasting features - Part 1

by Thomas Storck

G. K. Chesterton's younger brother, Cecil, gave what is probably the most succinct definition of distributism, or rather of a distributist in an article he wrote in 1917.

A Distributist is a man who desires that the means of production should, generally speaking, remain private property, but that their ownership should be so distributed that the determining mass of families - ideally every family - should have an efficient share therein. That is Distributism, and nothing else is Distributism. ... Distributism is quite as possible in an industrial or commercial as in an agrarian community. ...[1]

Why Unemployment is a Pseudoproblem - Part 2

by Thomas Storck

Continued from Part 1

Tsunami headed for Japan

I would like to request that our readers take a moment to pray for Japan and all those in the path of the tsunami.

Why Unemployment is a Pseudoproblem - Part 1

 

By Thomas Storck

Unemployment a pseudoproblem? By calling it that, I do not mean that unemployment does not exist, or that it is not a very serious concern for the unemployed, their families and for society as a whole. What I mean and will argue here is that unemployment is not something natural to economic life, but is a problem created almost entirely by the capitalist arrangement of our economy, one that would largely disappear under a distributist economy, and that is taken for granted by the academic discipline of economics only because that discipline has long been captive to the ideology of capitalism.