Christian democracy
A social market economy grounded in Catholic social teaching: private ownership, strong welfare, and family and church as institutions the state should support rather than replace.
What does this mean?
Christian democracy is the tradition that built post-war Western Europe, and it is regularly misfiled as ordinary conservatism. Its economic doctrine comes from Catholic social teaching rather than from liberalism: the encyclicals Rerum Novarum (1891) and Quadragesimo Anno (1931) affirmed private property while condemning both unregulated capitalism and socialism, insisted on a living wage, and defended the right of workers to organise. The resulting "social market economy" pairs competitive markets with universal insurance, sectoral bargaining and worker representation on company boards.
Its organising principle is subsidiarity: decisions belong at the lowest level capable of taking them, which means the state supports families, churches, unions and local associations rather than displacing them. This produces a distinctive combination — economically well to the left of Anglo-American conservatism, socially conservative on family and life questions, and strongly committed to supranational integration, since the European project was largely a Christian democratic construction.
The tradition has secularised considerably. Most of its parties now draw voters with no religious practice, and their social conservatism has softened, but the economic model and the commitment to European integration have held.
Where did it come from?
Grew out of Catholic political mobilisation against nineteenth-century liberalism and socialism, and became the dominant governing tradition of Western Europe after 1945 through Adenauer’s CDU, De Gasperi’s Christian Democracy in Italy and the MRP in France. Schuman, Adenauer and De Gasperi — all Christian democrats — founded the European Coal and Steel Community.
Major thinkers
- Jacques Maritain
- Wilhelm Röpke
- Pope Leo XIII
- Emmanuel Mounier
Historical figures
- Konrad Adenauer
- Alcide De Gasperi
- Robert Schuman
- Helmut Kohl
What it looks like today
- The Christian Democratic Union in Germany and its social market model
- The Austrian People’s Party
- The European People’s Party group, the largest bloc in the European Parliament
- The National Action Party in Mexico
Where it sits on each dimension
Wealth and inequality
The social market economy: substantial welfare provision and collective bargaining alongside private ownership. Noticeably more redistributive than Anglo-American conservatism.
The state in the economy
Personal liberty
Tradition and change
Conservative on family, marriage and life questions, though considerably less so than in the mid-twentieth century.
Nation and the world
Among the most pro-integration traditions in Europe; the founders of the European communities were largely Christian democrats.
Religion and the state
Treats Christian ethical teaching as a legitimate source of public policy, while accepting religious pluralism and constitutional democracy without reservation.
Power and its limits
Environment and growth
Crime and punishment
Its strongest arguments
- The social market economy it designed produced high growth with low inequality and strong industrial relations over several decades.
- Subsidiarity gives a principled account of what belongs to the state and what belongs to families and communities, rather than a bare preference for less government.
- It reconciled Catholic political movements to democracy after a century of hostility, and then built European integration.
Its strongest criticisms
- Grounding public policy in one religious tradition sits awkwardly with genuine pluralism, whatever the formal commitments.
- Its family policy assumed a male-breadwinner household and was slow to adjust, with lasting effects on women’s employment in several countries.
- As its parties secularised, critics argue the distinctive doctrine thinned into ordinary centre-right politics.
Common misconceptions
- That it is theocratic. It accepts constitutional democracy and religious pluralism, and was formed partly in opposition to clerical authoritarianism.
- That it is economically right-wing in the Anglo-American sense. Its parties built the German welfare state and defend codetermination and sectoral bargaining.
- That it requires a religious electorate. Most of its parties now draw heavily from voters with no religious practice.
A caveat
Christian democracy and conservatism overlap on social questions and diverge on economics. If you match both, the economic axes are usually what separates them.
Sources
- Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum · 1891
- Jacques Maritain, Christianity and Democracy · 1943
- Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe · Cornell University Press · 1996