Hi Hugh:

I’ve been following the flow of your thoughts on the Liberal-Marxist-Christian dialectical dialogue you are trying to develop with Lonergan, Raymaker and Whalon, Baum and Grant, while considering developments in China’s political economy over the past decade. Your contribution provoked me as a pastoral theologian, Catholic educator and militant, whose faith seeks to promote social justice, inspired by love, in concrete historical community contexts.

I unified to analyse your written reflections and identified seven interrelated elements. These are summarised in the first part of what follows. Then I conclude with an educational proposal based on the criteria of these elements. I suggest the development of a politically oriented pedagogy capable of grounding a praxis of communal authenticity that seek to mobilize the dynamics of labor and capital for the democratic development of an ecological economy.

Jim Morin, Talca. August 2025

Summary of elements

1. Theoretical Grounding: Lonergan’s Method and Dialectical Analysis

In this reflection, Hugh Williams advocates for a renewed liberal-Marxist-Christian dialogue grounded in Bernard Lonergan’s epistemology—especially the dynamic structure of conscious intentionality (experiencing, understanding, judging, and deciding)—as a means to mediate personal ethical discernment with collective social transformations.

Reviewing John Raymaker’s and Pierre Whalon’s book Attentive, Intelligent, Rational, and Responsible: Transforming Economics to Save the Planet (Marquette University Press, 2023), Williams highlights how their application of Lonergan’s Attentive, Intelligent, Rational, Responsible (AIRR), framework offers a concrete method for resolving ideological polarization. Raymaker and Whalon use Lonergan’s critical realism to analyze complex global challenges such as financial instability, ecological degradation, and social fragmentation, seeking a methodological foundation for constructive dialogue and action. See Review by Paul St. Amour.

Pedagogical implication: Political education, in this perspective, must begin with the interiority of moral and intellectual operations—as structured by Lonergan—but move toward communal mediation of the good through dialectical and interdisciplinary engagement with economic systems.

2. From Personal to Communal Authenticity: A Normative Horizon

Williams places at the center of his proposal the movement from individual authenticity to communal authenticity—a key concept in Lonergan’s ethical vision, extended by Raymaker and Whalon into the economic and ecological spheres. In AIRR, this shift becomes central to transforming institutions that govern labor, capital, and development. The challenge, as Williams frames it, is to build social structures that coordinate individual freedom with responsibility for the common good: structures that reflect the ethical maturity required for ecological and economic sustainability.

Pedagogical implication: A transformative pedagogy must not stop at individual formation but enable persons to act together in constructing ethical institutions. Raymaker and Whalon’s work, as interpreted by Williams, provides both the spiritual and analytic tools to sustain this transition.

3. Critique of Ideological Reification

Williams identifies “ideological reification” as a major obstacle to political and pedagogical renewal. He observes how Christians may remain trapped in liberal individualism, and Marxists in rigid collectivist frameworks. Through his reading of AIRR, he affirms that Raymaker and Whalon do not simply juxtapose these traditions but seek their mutual critique and creative integration. This is a call, Williams argues, to move beyond binaries toward a dialectical openness that allows for deeper convergence between faith, reason, and justice.

Pedagogical implication: Political pedagogy should include critical ideology analysis, equipping learners to unmask and transcend inherited oppositions. This fosters the kind of reflective freedom that Lonergan envisioned, and that AIRR operationalizes through concrete economic inquiry.

4. Reframing Labor and Capital as Normative Relations

Drawing on Gregory Baum’s reading of Laborem Exercens, Williams underscores the Christian social teaching that affirms the ethical primacy of labor over capital. In AIRR, Raymaker and Whalon extend this principle into the realm of systemic economic reform. They do so not merely through moral exhortation, but via Lonergan’s methodological tools, which allow for rigorous economic modeling rooted in normative commitments. This reframing serves as an alternative to both neoliberal commodification and Marxist reductionism.

Pedagogical implication: This calls for educational practices that help learners interrogate the moral architecture of economic categories. Labor and capital must be understood not just functionally but ethically and normatively, in light of their impact on human dignity and ecological viability.

5. China as a Pedagogical Case Study

Williams draws attention to China as a provocative case of state-led ecological transition. While not idealized, China’s capacity to guide capital toward public goods and large-scale environmental innovation is presented as a useful pedagogical counterpoint to liberal democracies’ failures. In this regard, AIRR helps readers think beyond conventional Western paradigms by offering a framework for evaluating development models through Lonerganian functional analysis.

Pedagogical implication: Comparative study of economic systems, including China’s mixed economy, can enable learners to imagine viable systemic alternatives. Such study supports a pedagogy that is both global and critical, and aligned with democratic and ecological aspirations.

6. Democratic Economic Planning via the GEM-FS Model

One of AIRR’s most significant contributions, as highlighted by Williams, is the proposal of the Grounded Economic Model – Functional Specializations (GEM-FS). This model, drawn directly from Lonergan’s methodological vision, maps eight differentiated but collaborative tasks (research, interpretation, history, dialectics, foundations, policy, systematics, and communications) for organizing economic life. It offers a vision for participatory planning that is normatively grounded in conscious human intentionality and ecologically responsible.

Pedagogical implication: The GEM-FS model provides educators with a powerful tool for teaching integrative thinking. Students can learn not only in critical reflection but by participating in collaborative design of democratic and ecological economic institutions.

7. Integral Development and Global Solidarity

Finally, Williams aligns AIRR with the vision of integral human development rooted in Catholic social thought, Marxist humanism, and postcolonial critique. Raymaker and Whalon’s work, he notes, frames development not as market expansion but as moral and spiritual growth grounded in solidarity, subsidiarity, and ecological awareness. Williams sees this orientation as essential for building alliances capable of addressing intersecting global crises.

Pedagogical implication: Curricula should cultivate planetary awareness, interfaith and intercultural dialogue, and the capacity for structural imagination. Educators should facilitate possibilities for persons to learn in communities which are preparing for the long-term labor of institutional and ecological regeneration.

In summary, Hugh Williams proposes a renewal a a liberal-Marxist-Christian dialogue by drawing on the AIRR project’s application of Lonergan’s economic theory and method. Through Raymaker and Whalon’s integration of critical realism, ethical analysis, and functional collaboration, Williams envisions a pathway toward communal authenticity, capable of mobilizing labor and capital in the service of an ecological and democratic future.

Educational Proposal

Cultivating Communal Authenticity: A Political Pedagogy for an Ecological Economy

In consideration of Williams’ analysis, we propose the development of a politically oriented pedagogy rooted in Bernard Lonergan’s method of conscious intentionality—being attentive, intelligent, reasonable, responsible by loving —as a framework for guiding ethical discernment and collective action in networks of communities committed to building an ecological economy. This pedagogy begins with personal authenticity and advances toward communal authenticity through dialectical engagement with the ideological tensions between liberalism and Marxism. Rather than opposing these traditions, it seeks to retrieve and integrate their enduring values—individual dignity, freedom, creative innovation and democratic participation from liberalism; and systemic critical structural analysis, solidarity, and the primacy of labor from Marxism—while critically transcending their limitations: like competitive individualism or colectivo authoritarianism.

The pedagogy would be structured to support communities in diagnosing economic and ecological injustices through a participatory process informed by Lonergan’s functional specializations (research, interpretation, history, dialectics, foundations, policy, systematics, and communications). It would facilitate deliberation on the normative relationship between labor and capital, guided by the principle of labor's ethical priority and the goal of democratizing the means of production within ecological limits. Case studies—such as China’s mixed results in ecological planning—serve as pedagogical resources for exploring how different systems coordinate capital and labor, helping participants imagine and design alternatives adapted to their local contexts. This process is designed not only for technical competence but for ethical and cultural transformation oriented toward long-term sustainability.

The contribution of Howard Richards is vital to this proposal. His work on economic analysis—particularly his critique of the dominant logic of global capitalism—offers conceptual tools for identifying the systemic exclusions that leave large segments of humanity outside viable participation in the economy. His method of “unbounded organization” provides a pragmatic and hopeful framework for constructing inclusive economic practices grounded in community solidarity, reciprocity, and cultural meaning. Richards argues that resolving the contradiction between moral values and the structure of the prevailing economic system requires not only policy change but a cultural transformation of attitudes on how we define work, value, and human development. His integration of legal, moral, and economic reasoning thus aligns closely with Lonergan’s transdisciplinary method, expanding the pedagogy’s scope from cognitive appropriation to institutional innovation.

Richards’ emphasis on community development as cultural change complements Lonergan’s notion of personal authenticity and collaboration. He demonstrates through practical examples—such as in post-apartheid South Africa or impoverished regions of Latin America—how local initiatives can regenerate economic life when rooted in shared values and participatory structures. These insights reinforce the need for political education that is not merely informative but formative: building the capacities for cooperation, ethical discernment, and imagination for structural change. By incorporating Richards’ approach, this political pedagogy becomes not only a framework for diagnosing dysfunction but also a catalyst for reinventing the cultural norms and institutional arrangements that enable communities to flourish ecologically, economically, and spiritually.