Mediating Structures and Constitutional Liberty
There are those of us whose job seems always to be immediate problem-solving. We are like people frantically busy piling up rocks with the fleeting notion that perhaps they are building something. To Empower People: The Role of Mediating Structures in Public Policy by Peter Berger and Richard Neuhaus (American Enterprise Institute, 1977) offers a portrait in which resemblances can be seen between the haphazard rock pile and the city of good “mediating structures” there portrayed.Approaching the subject as a lawyer, the question at once comes to mind: Do we need mediating structures (family, church, voluntary association, neighborhood, racial and ethnic subgroups) in a society governed by the American Constitution? If the “mediating structures“ are thought to be necessary to protect the individual from the state, is that not precisely the function of the Constitution?