Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism
We make the case for Moral Capitalism.
Here is the December edition of Pegasus.
In this issue, we include a piece from yours truly about our Principles for Business and Stoic humanism. We also added an excerpt of a recent decision by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission which now requires companies to provide the public with more information on their human capital.
I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.
Happy New Year!
Of what use is an effort like the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism (CRT) during a time of pandemic?
What is the case for financial support of our mission and the many thoughtful contributions of members of our network?
As 2020 comes to an end, in this holiday season for many of us, I have been reflecting on this.
For the past months, key phrases and words pushed upon us by the pandemic have been “follow the science,” “lockdowns” and “what should the government do?,” among others.
But does science have a moral compass? Does government? Do politicians and regulators?
The moral compass of science is in the minds of the scientists. Data, as we know, must be interpreted. Data can be manipulated to fit narratives. Who controls making the narratives to which data is subordinated? Which narratives are sound, reliable? Which ones should be taken as truth?
Scientists have power and power always needs moral guidance to seek what is good, right and fair.
Ordering lockdowns is another use of power. All government is the use of power over others. What moral standards set limits on the use of public power?
One lesson taught to us by the pandemic is the foundational importance of work in morals and ethics, in finding principles which can be applied in action to affect the outcomes of our lives.
It’s an old point actually, but technology, tools, instruments and expertise without more is unguided and, therefore, can be shaped by human purposes for good, bad or indifference and irrelevance. Human purposes, of course, have many sources, venture out on many roads seeking disparate goals and objectives and justify themselves with many rationalizations. The pandemic has taught us to consider ethics, as well as expertise.
The perspective of moral capitalism would have enterprise respond to a pandemic by quickly developing new technologies for detection of the virus, care of those taken ill and creation of vaccines to protect against infection. In addition, the well-being of stakeholders, especially customers and employees, must be factored into the search for profit.
Lockdowns also demonstrated the ethical need for businesses to remain profitable under such conditions, to provide needed goods and services and to fund families through employment of workers.
Though they can create liquidity, it seems self-evident that public agencies cannot fund economies indefinitely. At some point, real wealth must be created to sustain community well-being.
With respect to governments, the CRT application of morality to public office prioritizes the role of trust as a requirement for good government. Government has an obligation to earn public trust.
Secondly, the moral imperative of earning trust leads to a second standard for good government – the use of discourse, full and free discourse, tolerant and comprehensive, where data and arguments are scrutinized and not taken for granted as a priori truth.
One example of our work, which is both unique and bears within it the seeds of greater harmony between Christians and Muslims, is our study of the moral standards contained in certain covenants made with Christian communities by the Prophet Muhammad. No one else has undertaken such a study, which grew out of our explorations of ethical teachings across our global communities.
With the start of the pandemic, we made special efforts to reach out to our fellows and others to gather their insights and wisdom about finding meaning and purpose in these unexpected and unnerving times. We framed this work as reaching out to the moral sense as an active force for good in our world.
If this perspective on the importance of moral reflection makes sense to you, we would be grateful for your assistance, both financially and with ideas, on how best to strengthen the quality of CRT round tables and publications.
Please also consider who you might interest in the work of the CRT and introduce them to us.
You may contribute to us one of three ways:
-by credit card via PayPal
-by mailing us a check: 75 West Fifth Street, Suite 219, St. Paul, MN 55102
-or via wire transfer (please respond to this message for instructions).
Thank you again for your past interest in our work and for your continued support.
Our board has decided to award 2020 Dayton Awards to Andrew Cecere, Chairman, President and CEO of U.S. Bancorp, Don Samuels, CEO of MicroGrants and Sondra Samuels, President and CEO of the Northside Achievement Zone.
Also, in recalling Minnesota’s long legacy of business leadership, we wanted to also recognize James Ford Bell, Founder, President and Chairman of General Mills, for his remarkable leadership in helping feed Europeans and Russians after World War I.
Information about the award ceremony will be announced shortly.
Berrett-Koehler, the publisher of Moral Capitalism, is having a holiday book sale now through December 15. They’re offering a 40% discount on books bought through its website here.
To get the discount, enter the code ONWARD at checkout.
Moral Capitalism, published in 2003, has withstood the swings of fate and the ravages of time very well. It has just been translated into Russian. The premise of the book was validated last year by the Business Roundtable and World Economic Forum (WEF) in their endorsements of “stakeholder capitalism” as the purpose of business enterprise.
But neither the Business Roundtable nor WEF provided a theory integrating moral factors with microeconomics in a workable theory of the firm. Nor has the U.N.’s Global Compact or its Sustainable Development Goals provided such a useful theory to guide business practice. Nor has the investment community, with its very recent fascination with its environmental, social and governance (ESG) outcomes for enterprise.
What has stood the test of time may be reliable. As the author, I prefer to defer to the judgments of others, but I do want to let you know of the opportunity to buy Moral Capitalism at a good price.
Here is the November edition of Pegasus.
In this issue, we include what some in our network, including a former prime minister, two former foreign ministers and a British lord, think about the ongoing U.S. election.
I also offer my perspectives.
I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.
Tomorrow, Thursday, November 19, is Give to the Max Day here in Minnesota, a day designation for charitable giving to non-profits and worthy causes and I ask for your support.
For the international members of our network, your gift would recognize the leadership of the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism for the past 25 years in putting forth the norms and best practices of stakeholder capitalism, what we have come to call “moral capitalism.”
Last year, this approach to improvement of the human condition through innovation and rising living standards, funding more effective public governance and more robust civil society opportunities to advance our moral, social and cultural capacities to fulfill more inclusively our human instincts for moral and aesthetic expression in this morally silent cosmos was ratified by the Business Roundtable and World Economic Forum.
We have added dignity and depth to the agenda of sustainability and responsible enterprise and will continue to do so to the best of our collective abilities.
For the American members of our network, we have taken innovative leadership here in Minnesota to pioneer models of improvement in law enforcement – principles of community policing – and wealth creation among African American families using innovative FinTech smart phone applications.
We would be very grateful for your financial support, especially during this time of social confinements due to the coronavirus.
To contribute, please click here to make a donation suitable for you.
You can also give directly to us via PayPal, if you prefer.
If you would like to mail a check, our address is 75 West Fifth Street, Suite 219, St. Paul, MN 55102.
We also accept wire transfers. If you would like to donate this way, please let us know.
Anything you can give would be greatly appreciated.
We recently posted more short videos on relevant and timely topics which I believe would be of interest to you. They include:
–On Market Control versus Competition
–Business,Government and the Power of Last Resort
–Business Values and the Value of Business
–On Antitrust and Market Concentration
–On Private Companies and Free Speech
You can find all our videos on our YouTube channel here.
Also, if you aren’t following us on Twitter or haven’t liked us on Facebook, please do so. We update both platforms frequently.
Recently, the Caux Round Table (CRT) appointed five new fellows. I would like to welcome them and give you their backgrounds. CRT fellows graciously volunteer to advise and consult with the CRT’s leadership to provide the best thinking on capitalism, its prospects and shortcomings. They bring to our attention new developments and opportunities for collaboration and outreach.
Eraj Weerasinghe
Eraj Weerasinghe has distinguished himself in the field of valuation, which is of great interest to the CRT in re-conceptualizing the asset value of companies to include social and human capitals. Eraj has worked on valuation for Duff & Phelps and Ernst & Young. He is now with Duff & Phelps in San Francisco, responsible for leading a valuation team with a global focus on the oil and gas, infrastructure and mining sectors.
From September 2014 to December 2019, he was in London with Ernst & Young as Associate Partner in valuations modelling and economics where he led a revenue business providing deal pricing and valuation advice to major institutional investors (Canadian and Australian pension investors) in energy infrastructure and oil and gas corporates.
Eraj has global experience in valuing investments across the infrastructure spectrum, including social infrastructure, regulated businesses, contracted assets, throughput infrastructure assets and infrastructure related businesses. He has provided deal pricing and valuations advice globally across the oil and gas value chain, from upstream exploration and production through mid-stream transportation and downstream, including refining, wholesale and retail marketing and trading of oil products, including LPG and oil field services. He is a regular speaker on valuation matters in oil, gas and energy infrastructure.
Eraj’s credentials include Charter Financial Analyst, Chartered Surveyor and member of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. He studied law at the College of Law in London and received a B.S. and M.Sc. from the London School of Economics.
Gaurav Vasisht
Gaurav Vasisht joined the Volcker Alliance, established by the late Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, in 2014 as Senior Vice President and Director of the financial regulation program. In this role, Gaurav advised Mr. Volcker and worked closely with numerous Volcker Alliance board members on financial regulatory matters. He also leads the development of regulatory reform proposals and promotes the Alliance’s policy priorities before the federal government, including the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, the House Financial Services Committee and an array of financial regulatory agencies.
At the Alliance, Gaurav has led the development and drafting of several reports and working papers, including Unfinished Business: Banking in the Shadows, a comprehensive financial reform proposal hailed by former Vice President Joe Biden as “a blueprint on how to make the financial system safer.” Gaurav also contributed to the brief amicus curiae of Ben Bernanke and Paul Volcker in support of defendant-appellant in MetLife, Inc. v. Financial Stability Oversight Council. He has testified before Congress on financial stability matters and presented before the G20’s Financial Stability Board on the effectiveness of too-big-to-fail reforms. Gaurav was Chairman Volcker’s liaison to the Systemic Risk Council, a private sector, non-partisan body of experts committed to addressing regulatory and structural issues relating to global systemic risk.
Prior to joining the Volcker Alliance, Gaurav spent a decade in New York State’s government. Most recently, he served as Executive Deputy Superintendent of the NYS Department of Financial Services (DFS), heading the agency’s 300-employee banking division. In this role, he supervised all state-chartered depository institutions, most of the U.S.-based branches, agencies and representative offices of foreign banking organizations and all of New York’s mortgage bankers, brokers, servicers, money transmitters and finance companies. Gaurav also co-directed DFS’s anti-money laundering and international sanctions enforcement initiative, assisted in the supervision of independent monitors required under agency enforcement actions and vetted the applications of emerging financial technology companies for licensure under NYS banking law.
Gaurav is co-author of What Makes a Regulator Excellent?, a book edited by the University of Pennsylvania Law School and published by the Brookings Institution Press.
A graduate of New York University and St. John’s University School of Law, Gaurav has worked on pioneering initiatives discussed in leading law and policy textbooks and covered in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.
He has been a Non-Resident Fellow at the Global Financial Markets Center at Duke University Law School, is a Contributor to Penn Law’s Regulatory Review and has guest lectured at law and business schools across the U.S., including Baruch, Duke, Georgetown, Penn, Vanderbilt and the University of California, Hastings.
Michael Wright
Michael Wright has spent most of his career as a senior executive and strategist in high technology which allowed him to pervade most industries and most cultures of the developed world. That experience includes both line and staff and includes all management levels, from product to functional, to c-suite to public boards. He is fortunate to be one of few senior executives who has expertise in both operations and strategy, as well as in governance and organizational architecture on a global scale.
He has raised millions for startups and publicly traded entities and been entrusted with the assets of nascent to large-cap global technology companies and been a successful entrepreneur. He has also lived management responsibilities from venture capital to public ownership and championed product and process development along with growing intangible assets. Michael developed and promoted strategic leadership training, innovation and high-speed transitions on the path to building high performance teams. And luckily, he had the foresight to build robust, future oriented, capacity in information technology and knowledge management, the basis for global competition in the 4th industrial revolution and exponential era.
He led successful startups to exits, including his own (WWK.com) and others, including August Technologies and Entegris.
His business strengths are the experiences and energy enabling him to encourage, mentor, connect and energize the entrepreneurial engine required to build out innovative ecosystems that can be quickly and robustly developed in the exponential era.
Michael is also a writer with over 40 published articles focused on the interaction of business and technology with human behaviors, values and belief systems.
Michael Hartoonian
Michael Hartoonian is a former Scholar-in-Residence at Hamline University and Professor and Director of the Institute for Democratic Capitalism in the (then) Department of Educational Policy and Administration in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota. His research interests are in ethics, education and economics and their integration in a democratic republic, as well as identifying democratic value tensions in American history and contemporary life.
Michael received his B.A. degree in economics from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin and his M.A., in history and education from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His Ph.D., also from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is in curriculum and instruction-history and social sciences and administration. In 1992, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Ripon College, in Ripon, Wisconsin and in 2000, he received the Lucia R. Briggs Distinguished Achievement Award from Lawrence University.
Michael continues to write, lecture and consult in education, business and government throughout the U.S., Central America, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. His experiences include being a classroom teacher, state (Wisconsin) content supervisor (social studies), school administrator and policy advisor for Wisconsin’s State Superintendent. He has been a Fulbright Scholar (Africa), member of the National (Humanities) Faculty, Director of the Danforth International Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Co-Coordinator of the Wisconsin Geographic Alliance. In 1995 and 1996, he served as President of the National Council for the Social Studies.
He has authored over seventy articles in such journals as the Kappan, Social Education, Theory and Research in Social Education, Pacific-Asian Education, The Social Studies, The Biological Sciences Study Journal, the Wisconsin Academy Review, The Good Society and has authored and contributed to several books on social studies education, U.S. history, international and global relations, curriculum integration, teacher education, the development of thinking and reasoning in children, democratic capitalism, civic virtue and citizenship. He is lead author of the book The Idea of America: How Values Shaped Our Republic and Hold the Key to Our Future. His newest book is Chased by the Memory: A Boy’s Struggle for Identity.
Isabella Bunn
Isabella Bunn is an international lawyer and policy advisor with a transatlantic background as corporate counsel, trade and investment director and endowed professor of business ethics.
Based at the University of Oxford, she is Research Fellow in Governance and Global Ethics at Regent’s Park College, Associate Director of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture and Trustee of the Oxford Peace Research Trust. Isabella serves on the International Advisory Council of Oxford Analytica, a geopolitical consulting firm and as Senior Advisor to its Foundation.
Isabella’s academic background includes a B.S. in foreign service from Georgetown University, an M.A. in international relations and J.D., cum laude, from the University of San Diego, a M.Phil. in theology from the University of Oxford and a Ph.D. in human rights law from the University of Bristol. Her current research interests relate to corporate governance and values, business responsibility for human rights and sustainable development and justice in the global economy. At the British Academy, she is a member of the Corporate Advisory Group for the Future of the Corporation program. She is a contributor to the Human-Centered Business Model project, which originated with the World Bank’s Global Forum on Law, Justice and Development and is now based at the OECD Development Centre. She is also engaged with the U.N. Global Compact, notably the Action Platform for Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.
Isabella has held several leadership appointments with the American Bar Association (ABA), including as Chair of the Advisory Council for the ABA Center for Human Rights, Council Member of the ABA Section of International Law and International Co-Chair of the Fellows of the ABA. In 2018, she was designated as one of the ABA representatives to the United Nations. Additional roles include a member of the Founding Executive Council of the Society of International Economic Law, member of the board of the Internet Bar Organization and member of the Council of Advisors of the Washington Institute for Business, Government & Society.
Here is the October edition of Pegasus.
In this issue, we include a piece with my perspectives on the Pope’s new encyclical, Fratelli Tutti. We also include one on human dignity in Islam by Professor Muhammad Hashim Kamali and one from my colleague Rich Broderick on William Butler Yeats and how he relates to our time.
I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.
We recently posted more short videos on relevant and timely topics which I believe would be of interest to you. They include:
–Uber, Capitalism, and the Law
–Who Guards the Guardians?
–When Company Culture Shifts
–The Importance of Valuation
You can find all our videos on our YouTube channel here.
Also, if you aren’t following us on Twitter or haven’t liked us on Facebook, please do so. We update both platforms frequently.