Subsidiarity Preserves Hierarchy

Subsidiarity preserves hierarchy; Hayek’s market does not. Hayek’s coordination mechanism is flat and emergent, with no central authority. Subsidiarity explicitly keeps organizational hierarchy but changes its function: from directing to enabling, from commanding to providing context and guardrails. Accountability still aggregates upward. Higher levels still intervene when lower levels cannot handle the issue. “Let the closest competent authority decide, backed by a hierarchy that enables rather than directs” is a fundamentally different prescription from “let the market decide.” This is also not the same as flattening.