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From our first round table in 1986, the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism (CRT) has sought to transcend all parochialism, sectarianism, ethnocentricity and partisanship through dialogue and having what its founders called “honest conversations.” Such conversations demanding of participants hearing others and having empathy are not easy. In a way, they are a search for truth and many times, truth, about ourselves, is not what we want to hear.

In these conversations and perhaps whenever truth is present, there is judgment, the application of some outside standard to our actions and aspirations. Honest conversations are hard on narcissism and selfishness, on unkind ambition and resentments. But without judgment, what is the use of ethics, morality, law or values?

We can, of course, use our ethics, morality, values and the laws we want to enforce for our own ends to puff ourselves up or push others down. But what justifies such self-magnification, useful though it might seem?

In Washington, D.C. this past Wednesday, there was an assault on established institutions doing their duty in accepting the results of an election – a ransacking of the Capitol – unprecedented in the history of the U.S. Angry citizens, some prepared for violence, encouraged by an outgoing president, forced their way into the houses of Congress, climbing up walls, smashing windows and demolishing locked doors.

While the CRT is usually reticent in getting entangled in the internal travails of countries, though members of the network may have strong personal opinions for and against such actions or policies, it seems appropriate to bring to a wider awareness relevant standards with which to assess and judge events of significance for our times. Having a care for the common good carries a responsibility to engage in honest conversations.

The CRT, through our round table process, has proposed certain ethical principles for government and politics. The lawless and vengeful protest in Washington on Wednesday cannot be reconciled with such principles. Any use of force and violence to impose one’s will contradicts principles of right order.

The CRT Principles for Government are set forth below.

I direct your attention to the fundamental principle that public office is a public trust. Fiduciary duties of loyalty to the nation, the people and the laws are first and foremost. Political power is not for personal exploitation; it is not personal property to be used arbitrarily for selfish advantage. Secondly, fiduciary duties of due care as a trustee of power requires serving the best interests of others, even people we don’t like. In such service, we are to act after reasonable consideration of alternatives in a manner which uses the prudence and foresight which others would bring to the decision.

Next, in holding a position of public trust, we are to use discourse, not force, in making decisions as to the use of our powers. If we are upset, angry or feel the boot of injustice, we should respond with honest conversations until others leave us no option but intolerant confrontation on behalf of what is right.

To me, the standard of discourse was well expressed by President Abraham Lincoln when he said on the occasion of his second inauguration:

“With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let … do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

One of our fellows, Michael Hartoonian, sent me some thoughts on citizenship, the personal agency which drives free societies. As we begin 2021, after nearly a year of collective regimentation and personal, self-discipline to minimize the impact of a pernicious, but invisible menace, it might be time to focus once again on action by individuals for the common good through their personal commitments and taking of risk and finding courage.

With the U.K. out of the E.U. and with realignments in the Middle East, but populist nationalism comfortably entrenched in some nations, great and small, esteeming good citizenship seems quite relevant globally.

I hope you find Michael’s recollection of past virtues reassuring that they may not be irredeemably lost.

In the years when participants in the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism (CRT) have met to contribute insights to the betterment of global capitalism, they drew on experience, as well as on “book” learning.  The tensions in ethics between aspiration and reality, thought and action, hope and commitment, long-term and short-term, profit and community benefits, seem inexorably necessary.  Abstractions, what the philosopher Jurgen Habermas calls “normativity,” have their necessary place in human affairs.  But abstractions without more remain disembodied in the realm of thought and language.  To reify what is merely conscious is to leave normativity behind and enter the realm of facticity.

The CRT has, therefore, sought, with dedication, to be present in both realms – normativity and facticity.  Ideas and ideals guide and inspire and implementation – key performance indicators – changes the world.

Here in Minnesota, after the death of George Floyd at the end of May, demands for defunding police forces in Minneapolis and St. Paul and insistence on more effective steps to reduce traditional inequalities of wealth among African Americans became immediate challenges in our home community.  To meet the challenge, the CRT applied its principles to design very practical responses to policing, building personal assets and re-framing how we, as Americans, should understand and talk with each other about “racism.”

However, all three responses can have global applications in 1) policing; 2) providing an on-ramp for inclusion of poor families in banking and investments; and 3) reducing mistrust and even enmity between ethnicities and religions.

Frankly, we have responded to injustices differently than others here have recommended.  Our analysis of the causes of inequality reflects our learning about how societies, cultures and economies intersect.  At the root of human efforts are values.  Values cannot be separated from the causes of human failures and successes.

Values alone cannot bring about success, nor are they solely responsible for the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”  Circumstances, skills and qualifications, emotions – constructive and destructive – and personal dispositions combine to impact the outcomes we all experience. But skills, competencies, personal efforts and power and money cannot compensate for bad values.

We have applied a values approach to policing as first proposed by Sir Robert Peel in his Nine Principles of Policing of 1829, written to provide a moral compass for the first modern police force, the London Metropolitan Police.  We proposed that police officers should first be hired for character and then trained for competence.

Secondly, on building personal financial assets in African American communities, we have mobilized a team to deploy a FinTech Smartphone App so that youth and families can start their own individual investment accounts with investments as low as $5.00.  The values foundation for this program is the personal habit of savings and planning for the future.

Thirdly, in considering whether America is systemically racist, we prefer to elevate the value of individual, not collective, responsibility.  We believe that individuals of different backgrounds and life experiences can come to learn about others and appreciate how they view life through a process of translation and interpretation across cultures and perspectives.

In these ways, we seek very constructively to use the CRT methodology of applying the moral sense – wisdom and virtue – to decision-making and to shape the course of facticity.  By tapping into core realities of the human person and drawing on those powers in our actions, we believe good can be achieved.

Yesterday, we held what turned out to be a most interesting round table discussion via Zoom with some of our fellows.

I would like to note some of the major points tabled:

• What the pandemic has revealed here in the U.S. are “underlying deficits.” While there has been much talk and media narratives on heroism of those confronting Covid to liven our spirits, we have seen with more clarity differentials among different sectors and classes and ethnicities. Our education system has not responded well to keeping learning achievement up during distance learning for many in lower income families. The economy does not lift all boats.
• Do you have a job or what’s your life’s work? Which question should we ask? Having a sense of a life’s work gives meaning and inspires dedication and gives one “skin in the game” of accomplishing our assigned role. Work is a team sport and we can’t be moral all alone. Morality is a higher calling for us, beyond earning our daily bread. Being present for others contributes our capital to the effort.
• In a discussion of how to measure the success of a company – “Numbers never speak for themselves.”
• Perhaps we should think of capital not as accumulated wealth, but as the capacity to take future action.
• Capitals should be understood as vectors, each with different speeds and weights, force fields, working on different time horizons which may or may not converge one with the other. Capital vectors can also diverge, creating more chaotic conditions. Capitals are a complex system, but that only means there is an architecture to capitals. We are comfortable with narrow, vertical systems when they may be more beneficial when they have a wide range of interactions and stimulations.
• What is value creation really? There is thick value creation and there is thin value creation. Thin value is money; thick value is a broad range of accomplishments, which then go on to support more accomplishments. What is the social value of economic value creation? What is the economic value of creating social values?
• Sustainability is more than protecting the environment. It is our systems which need to be sustainable. Distributed systems are more sustainable – robust – than centralized systems.
• Being in nature, not urban centers where wind and trees have obvious presence to us, is important for a good life. Coping with Covid in population centers is provoking people to reconsider the affirming side of being with nature. This should be a philosophy for capitalism.
• Is not a key condition of human happiness to have a “home?” We seek to create spaces for our homes, but homes are more than just a space. They need relationships and values.

I hope these observations stimulate your reflections at this time when one year comes to an end and we, on a cycle of our own making, energize our ambitions, thoughts and resolve to a new passage of time.