Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism
We make the case for Moral Capitalism.
Each year, an eclectic group of local think tanks and individuals come together to honor the life and career of John Brandl, former dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and former state legislator, for his uncommon quest for common ground.
This year’s program was held on February 2 at the Humphrey School on the topic of what should be done with Minnesota’s historic budget surplus.
A video recording of the event can be found here and the proceedings here.
Here’s the February issue of Pegasus.
In this edition, we include an article on freedom and the moral imperative, another on manners and the moral sense and some thoughts by Harlan Cleveland on leaders.
I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.
Also, if you’ve missed any of our previous issues, you can find them all in the archive here.
Why should you give financial support to the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism?
One, it is unique in the world for finding and documenting fundamental moral realities which, across cultures, guide us towards a moral capitalism and moral government.
Two, at this time in history, anomie, narcissism (including racialism), atrophy of leadership, lassitude among bureaucrats, uncertainty and aversion to accepting personal responsibility are everywhere dangers to our civilization. They must be addressed and put behind us. How can that be done? Who is up to the task?
The poet, William Butler Yeats, wrote in a similar time of uncertainty:
The connection between thought forms – words – and the quality of our lives was put by Confucius this way: “If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things; If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music will not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot.”
Several years ago in the U.S., the Caux Round Table called out “wokeness” as an ideology inconsistent with moral capitalism. We took a leadership position, insisting on a correct understanding of the thought form “woke.” Later, the Caux Round Table drew attention to the inequities imposed on individuals by the procrustean program of allocating career advancement using the invidious criteria for preferential treatment proposed by diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) taskmasters.
In both cases, the Caux Round Table took leadership positions defending high standards of moral integrity.
Michel Foucault named ideological conventions like “woke” and “DEI” as “surveillance discourse.” Such authoritarian use of language often seeks to prevent the expression of respectful humanisms.
What Really is ESG?
In providing leadership for the environment, social and governance (ESG) movement, which seeks to incentivize private firms to provide public goods, the Caux Round Table has focused on the “S” and the “G” by calling for new understandings of “capital” itself. The Caux Round Table proposed that the “capital,” which generates wealth, enhances cultural prosperity and solidifies community well-being across generations includes more than money and traditional balance sheet assets.
Once balance sheets are revised and valuation analysis is modernized, moral capitalism can be easily practiced and financed.
For nearly 4 decades now, the Caux Round Table has sought the truth, which is revealed by the study of reality and to seek such truth in dialogue among wisdom traditions. This collective and mutually respectful effort has brought forth very helpful learning about the moral good by using words of different languages designed to articulate nuanced insights into our common human moral sensibility.
We need your financial help in putting on the internet for global distribution educational modules on moral capitalism and moral government. We are calling this project renaissance, a rebirth of moral courage and clarity in moral thinking after the study of humanity’s moral heritage and each individual’s moral sense.
That you may evaluate the importance of our thought leadership, I attach a copy of our 2022 year in review (annual report).
But let me highlight some of our more important and unique accomplishments:
Pegasus
During 2022, we endeavored to provide in our monthly newsletter, Pegasus, cutting edge comments and ideas responding to the challenges of our time, in line with Confucius’ injunction to get the words right so that all people can flourish on their own, having opportunities, rights and responsibilities.
Articles seeking to provide access to sound understandings were:
-The Art and Architecture of Moral Capitalism, by Michael Hartoonian
-The Charmed Structure of Friendship, by Michael Hartoonian
-Designing Friendships, by Michael Hartoonian
-Surviving Speed and Complexity, by Michael W. Wright
-Recentering Moral Capitalism, by Stephen B. Young
-The Moral Capitalist: Dimensions, Attributes and Assessments, by Michael Hartoonian
-What Are Governments for Anyway?, by Stephen B. Young
-Moral Capitalism and the Middle Class, by Michael Hartoonian
-The Re-emergence of Theocracy in Modern China, by Stephen B. Young
-No Trust, No Future, by Michael W. Wright
-The 100th Anniversary of Mussolini’s March on Rome: Il Duce’s Long Shadow, by Stephen B. Young
-The Mindset of the Moral Capitalist, by Michael Hartoonian
-Mindsets, by Stephen B. Young
-The Design of Ethical Behavior and Moral Institutions, by Michael Hartoonian
-A New Code of Ethics for Journalism, by Stephen B. Young
Caux Round Table Fellows
We relied upon our Fellows, participating in Zoom round tables, to provide their guidance as to the critical and fundamental challenges facing our global community and our systems of wealth creation and governance.
Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad to Respect and Protect Christians
We continued to promote awareness of the example given by the Prophet Muhammad in his covenants to respect and protect Christian communities.
As Pope Francis wrote me, he “trusts that such covenants will serve as a model for the further enhancement of mutual respect, understanding and fraternal coexistence between Christians and Muslims at the present time.”
Framing a New Global Ethic
In late 2022, with his invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin challenged the legitimacy of the post-World War II liberal democratic international order. The Caux Round Table responded with an initiative in Thailand to begin incorporation of Asian wisdom traditions on moderation, equilibrium and checks and balances in a new foundational global ethic.
I think that our distinctive contributions well deserve your generous support.
To donate, please click here.
If you would rather mail a check, our address is 75 West Fifth Street, Suite 219, St. Paul, MN 55102.
You can also contribute via wire transfer. For instructions, please respond to this email.
Thank you in advance for your support and continued interest in our work.
We recently posted more short videos on relevant and timely topics. They include:
–Happiness, Social Fitness and the Moral Sense
–Technology and Climate Change
–Holding Government to Account
All our videos can be found on our YouTube page here. We recently put them into 8 playlists, which you can find here.
If you aren’t following us on Twitter or haven’t liked us on Facebook, please do so. We update both platforms frequently.
Here’s the January issue of Pegasus.
In this edition, we report to you on the activities of the Caux Round Table during 2022 by including our year in review (annual report).
Next, we include my tongue-in-cheek, but not necessarily off the wall guestimates as to what might befall us during 2023.
Lastly, we include an essay by our associate editor, Michael Hartoonian, on perhaps the most sublime questions facing each of us: Am I free? Am I moral?
I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.
Our board of directors has chosen Mary Anne Kowalski, owner of Kowalski’s Markets, Kris Kowalski Christiansen, CEO of Kowalski’s Markets and Kyle Smith, CEO of Reell Precision Manufacturing, as recipients of the 2022 Dayton Award.
The board, thus, recognizes the important contributions to society by small and family-owned businesses:
This year, 2022, the Caux Round Table will present Dayton Awards to Mary and Kris Kowalski of Kowalski’s Markets and to Kyle Smith of Reell Precision Manufacturing.
Our board of directors has established the criteria for selection of an award recipient as:
-CEO of a Minnesota company or similar operational organization.
-Revenue and profits if relevant to mission.
-Community impact if relevant to mission.
-Demonstrated innovation/response to market opportunities.
-Quality of company culture.
-Care of employees.
-Customer satisfaction.
-Environmental stewardship.
-Personal community commitment.
-Company community commitment.
-Vision and prudence: level 5 leadership traits (Jim Collin’s book, Good to Great)
We seek to recognize leadership, not position. In fact, small and family-owned companies contribute more to the quality of our lives than do large corporations. Small businesses constitute 99% of all American companies and employ 47% of working Americans. We have also found that small and family-owned companies are more in touch with their stakeholders than are large corporations, which tend, on the whole, to favor shareholders. The companies that made Minnesota prosperous with a high quality of life, honest and dedicated public officials and dynamic civil society nonprofits started as family-owned or small companies.
It is the intangible of leadership that counts most for moral success.
There are essential abilities required to lead – integrity, courage, compassion, respect and responsibility:
Integrity is being honest and having strong moral principles. Having integrity means you are true to yourself and would do nothing that demeans or dishonors you. Integrity makes you believable, as you know and act on your values.
Courage is strength in the face of adversity and upholding what is right, regardless of what others may think or do. Courage enables you to take a stand, honor commitments and guide the way. Courage is a necessary element of responsibility.
Compassion is having concern for another. It is feeling for and not feeling with the other. Compassion is concern of others in a more global sense.
Respect is a feeling of deep admiration for someone. Leaders ought to be respected and they ought to respect those with whom they work. Demonstrating this perspective is essential to motivate and inspire others.
Responsibility is acting on commitment, will, determination and obligation. Responsibility implies the satisfactory performance of duties, the adequate discharge of obligations and the trustworthy care for or disposition of possessions. It is being willing and able to act in a life-enhancing manner. Responsibility is expected of self, as well as from others.
The nomination of Kyle Smith reported that:
I have never met an individual with more integrity than Kyle Smith. He holds himself to such a high standard of integrity, beyond what most of us even think about. He is intentional about everything he does, in business and his personal life. He is honest and extremely trustworthy. He knows what he believes and why he believes it and his values are his compass. He is a humble, servant leader. Kyle faces into hard decisions. Many courageous decisions have been made. In 2009, Reell’s revenue was cut in half. Kyle became CEO and led the way to greater profitability. The share price has since grown over 700%. When he joined the company, the bankers were calling us every day and now we are healthy and debt-free! Kyle knows the names of every coworker. His door is always open for anyone to talk about life or work.
The nomination of Mary and Kris Kowalski Christiansen, owners of a family business, reported that:
Mary and Kris became excellent teachers of civic responsibility and the qualities needed to create wealth. They understand wealth as excellence, of which profits are the by-product. They established a vision, expressed in their mission statement which was developed by “store citizens” and printed on their grocery bags – “Kowalski’s is a Civic Business.” This is a statement of Kowalski’s continuing commitment to the principles of moral capitalism and citizenship, defined in the company’s educational opportunities for all employees, in the care shown to all stakeholders and in the inclusiveness of the Kowalski mindset regarding their reciprocal duty with the larger community.
In 1991, Charles Denny, then the CEO of ADC Telecommunications, chaired a presentation by Ryuzaburo Kaku, then Chairman of Canon Inc. Mr. Kaku spoke of the Japanese business ethic of kyosei or symbiosis, whereby each company thrives due to reciprocal engagement with its stakeholders. Inspired by Mr. Kaku’s approach, which they found very similar to their own value-based understanding of successful business enterprise, several Minnesotans, including Chuck Denny and Tony Anderson, then CEO of H.B. Fuller, decided to present a set of ethical principles to the Caux Round Table, which met in Caux, Switzerland. Those principles had been worked out by a group here in Minnesota, including Bob MacGregor and Professor Kenneth Goodpaster of the University of St. Thomas.
The ceremony will tentatively be held sometime in April.
Here’s the December issue of Pegasus.
Last month’s edition directed your attention to the importance of thinking about mindsets. This month’s issue follows that presentation of which mindsets are most valuable with a discussion of design.
First, we include a short piece by Tom Fisher, the Dayton Hudson Chair in Urban Design at the University of Minnesota, on humanity and panarchy.
Next is an article by Michael Hartoonian, our associate editor, on ethical behavior and moral institutions.
Thirdly is a piece by yours truly introducing a new code of ethics for journalism and why we believe it’s needed.
Lastly, we include a letter to the editor on the business of business.
I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.
Happy New Year!
This is that time of year when many seek to show their appreciation of family and friends with thoughtful gifts.
Our colleague, Klaus Leisinger, has written two excellent books relevant to the higher aspirations we seek to encourage at this time of year in many cultures. We have published them on Amazon. You might consider ordering one or both as gifts for others or as a present to yourself:
Season’s greetings and best wishes for the coming New Year.
Here’s the November issue of Pegasus.
This edition is all about mindsets.
We would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.
Here in Minnesota, there is a special day each year for making financial donations to our local non-profits. It’s called “Give to the Max” and is tomorrow, Thursday, November 17.
There is no geographic prohibition on donors, so each year, we send out a request to you for financial support.
Our case is perhaps more compelling this year. Many leaders around the world seem to have lost heart and courage. There is a failure of confidence. Accordingly, those who look up to leaders seem more worried than before at what they see or rather, what they don’t see.
We are living in trying times – the first significant war in supposedly civilized Europe, of all places; the rejection of Western culture, based on the Enlightenment, by two great powers; ennui at confronting global warming; Big Data supporting the surveillance state; and Big Tech supporting surveillance capitalism. A recent Zoom round table with a number of our fellows centered on these concerns and the lack of trust, very little of which can be found.
Uniquely, the Caux Round Table has in its principles a synthesis of action agendas, centered on respecting human agency and concern for stakeholders. This effort can be a new paradigm, fit for global acceptance. The principles have stood tests of time and season, recession and inflation, scandal and success in the marketplace.
To expand our presence now that Covid restrictions are passing into history, we need your financial help. Please consider sending us a contribution of US$100.
We plan to resume in-person roundtables, would like to publish several books in 2023 addressing our global crisis of confidence and create educational modules to promote understanding of our principles.
To donate, please visit our Give to the Max page here. You can also contribute directly to us via PayPal here.
If you would like to mail a check, our mailing address is 75 West Fifth Street, Suite 219, St. Paul, MN 55102.
You can also contribute via wire transfer (hit reply and we’ll send you the instructions).
Contributions are tax-deductible for U.S. residents.
With many thanks and high regards for all that each of you do.