AIRR and Christian-Marxist Dialogue:,,Bringing the ‘Political-Economic Fever’ Under the Control of a Guiding Question or Issue
Hugh Williams
AIRR and Christian-Marxist Dialogue:
Bringing the ‘Political-Economic Fever’ Under the Control of a Guiding Question or Issue
In the four fevered emails ostensibly commenting of John and Pierre’s text, AIRR, sent between July 27 and July 29, there was some effort, at least implicitly, to clarify a fundamental question or issue.
I’m hoping there is value in trying to articulate one or two questions that seem fundamental to the discussion. Generally, this is all a philosopher can do. It may then be worthwhile to reiterate the main points so far that in my view carry the most basic question or issue.
I believe we can agree that AIRR is an enlivening advance of what I’m calling the Christian-Marxist dialogue-debate. So far no one has disputed this characterization. I argue this based upon textual references in both Lonergan and AIRR of how there is a serious effort to achieve some higher synthesis of what Lonergan has characterized as the liberal thesis and the Marxist anti-thesis.
Thus, we have this general Christian-Marxist dialogue being specified somewhat by this Liberal-Marxist dialectic seeking a higher synthesis, which has been spoken of as the middle or third way offered by the Christian tradition.
For me this has illuminated an additional problem, perhaps we can speak of it as a supervening pedagogical issue of ideological reification where persons identifying as Christian or Marxist can in their thinking and understanding become ideological captives – the Christian most likely to liberal ideology and the Marxist more likely to socialist-communist ideology.
However, the central concern from the Lonergan perspective and worked out in the AIRR text is for some effective movement from personal-subjective authenticity towards communal authenticity. This clearly is becoming a concern for the proper relationship between personal freedom and the good of order (in this instance, the social order).
Now for me philosophically (and turtle paced) this leads to, and must involve, a slow-paced consideration of two fundamental questions? ‘What is labor?’ and ‘What is capital?’ … and to the further question – ‘to what extent is there some normative relationship between labor and capital?’
So far in my own research into these matters, I’ve found the Canadian sociologist-theologian, Gregory Baum, making the clear case in his interpretation of JPII’s encyclical Laborem Exercens, that labor has priority over capital in Christian social teachings. (see emails from July 29) And so this left-leaning doctrine and its implication, I anticipate, will be somewhat unsettling for liberal Lonerganians in the West … or so it seems to me …..
This now should help others gain some real sense of the dialectical tension in this Christian-Marxist dialogue as it has been reopened and enlivened, at least for me, by my reading of this important AIRR text of John’s and Pierre’s.
This also can help one understand my contention that China can serve as a very concrete and useful pedagogical model, especially for giving some concreteness for the dialectical tensions around any serious consideration of the communal conversion dimension of the GEM-FS process outlined in AIRR, though I’m very aware that China and its development is itself a very serious and demanding study of its own.
Hugh Williams
Doug Mounce
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Hugh Williams
Doug,
can you give me the abstract of summary ...
and further ... I'd very much like to get your perspective on all
or some of this
as an American living through what could be very difficult times.
Hugh
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Doug Mounce
"ECONOMICS represents an attitude toward social conduct which is like jurisprudence in that it strives to be logical and orderly and to reconcile inconsistent institutions and conflicting ideals. Like jurisprudence, it furnishes faiths and slogans most effectively to those who never thoughtfully read its literature, while it raises only doubts and confusion for those who do. Karl Marx and Adam Smith both give a feeling of scientific certainty to different groups who know them only as names. In the various daily conflicts about governmental policy-whether it be protection vs. free trade, sound money vs. inflation, budget-balancing vs. governmental spending in a depression-editorial writers and financial preachers, generally, could not talk on both sides with the positiveness of an engineer who is dealing with blueprints were it not for their belief that economics is a body of scientific fact. Without that belief the present type of political speeches and editorials would be impossible. The entire flavor of political campaigns would change.
"Economics is unlike jurisprudence, however, in that it attempts to exclude the moral element. Here is a science which is above Morality, where ethical good may even be an economic evil. Economics assumes fundamental rules of cause and effect which are physical limitations on the power of man-made law to achieve social justice. It makes that philosophy palatable by proving that the maximum social justice can only arise out of the unfettered operation of human selfishness. There is complete agreement that man cannot change the economic laws of nature together with complete disagreement as to what particular things cannot be changed."
workplace analysis, a domain which explores employment parameters in light of religious
teaching on the social question at national, organizational or firm-specific levels. Following a
review of the concept in Western culture, philosophy, and management studies, Religious
Society of Friends (Quaker) and Roman Catholic social teachings are investigated for positively
correlative data to help develop the criterion variable. From the literature review of concept and
historical data in both traditions, it becomes possible to specify employment relations parameters
between the indirect and direct employer and employees in a manner that will ensure working
conditions consistent with these traditions, substantially enhancing the prospect of authenticity in
employment relations. This theology of the workplace analysis should complement and support
corporate social responsibility, management spirituality, authentic leadership / authentic
follower, and other secular research by offering a research methods bridge between empirically
grounded theology and secular studies, with the common goal of improving workplace and
enterprise function for competitive and sustainable enterprise, organization, and national
outcomes."
Hugh Williams
Doug,
Don't know Thurmond Arnold at all ... but he feels
like a righteous practitioner of the good ... or someone who at least tried to be ...
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If you managed to hear or read Charles Tackney's paper from the recent Boston College -
Lonergan Conference ...
I then would ask if the paper, especially in its review of Roman Catholic social teachings,
mentioned JPII's 1981 encyclical Laborems Exercens which I've been referencing
in recent posts? John's and Pierre's AIRR text does not make any mention it.
But I'm at the moment 'fetched up' (turtle paced) on the view that it actually raises an issue central to both the hermeneutic and dialectic
of Lonergan's (or anyone's) whole approach to economy ....
Hugh
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Doug Mounce
For Roman Catholics, work is, “as a human issue…at the very centre of the “social question” to
which, for almost a hundred years, since publication of the above-mentioned Encyclical (Rerum
Novarum), the Church’s teaching and the many undertakings connected with her apostolic
mission have been especially directed” (John Paul II, 1981, P:2).2 Work is a “fundamental
dimension of man’s existence on earth” (Ibid., P: 4). It has objective and subjective dimensions.
It has historical dimensions, including technology, manufacturing, distribution, along with our
evolving understanding of markets, economics, their social or institutional impact and regulation.
2 Papal encyclicals are cited by paragraph, not page, numbers: thus, P: x."
this is not an absolute right, rather one of stewardship for the common good. As Pope Leo wrote
in 1891, “The fact that God has given the earth for the use and enjoyment of the whole human
race can in no way be a bar to the owning of private property” (Leo XIII, 1891, P: 8). Again, by
1981 Pope John Paul II crafted this position anew, against the collectivism of Marxism and the
“programme of capitalism practiced by liberalism and by the political systems inspired by it”
(John Paul II, 1981, P: 14); the church“has always understood this right within the broader
context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole of creation: the right to private
property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone”
(Ibid., P: 14, italics in original)."
fundamental orientation was described above, to be one shaped by “the principles of the
substantial and real priority of labor, of the subjectivity of human labor and its effective
participation in the whole production process, independently of the nature of the services
provided by the worker” (John Paul II, 1981, P: 13). The fully expected and normative role of
employee participation in managerial prerogative is reinforced in the 2005 Compendium of the
Social Doctrine of the Church. In this text, the authoring Pontifical Commission wrote, “The
relationship between labour and capital also finds expression when workers participate in
ownership, management, and profits. This is an all-too-often overlooked requirement and it
should be given greater consideration” (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2004)."
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John Raymaker
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