Author: CRT Admin

Former Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende gave an interview published on June 25 in The Netherlands. His views, shaped by his experience in Dutch politics and, more recently, in working with Dutch companies on sustainability, are very much in harmony with the approach which has evolved at the Caux Round Table. He kindly refers to our efforts in a wide-ranging discussion of challenges facing Europe and all of us.

You may read his comments here.

For some years now, we have been told that “systemic racism” in American society, culture, enterprise and politics has uniquely, painfully and invidiously prevented African Americans from fully obtaining the advantages of American economic growth.

The premise of the Caux Round Table’s Principles for Business is that enterprise is a force for social progress, as it creates jobs, products, services and wealth for enjoyment on a scale never before possible in all of human history. The value premise behind enterprise is that self-interest can be reconciled with the public good.

In his two notable studies, The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith came to a similar conclusion. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he proposed that “The rich, …though they mean only their own conveniency , though the sole end which they propose from the labors of all the thousands they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessities of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants and thus without intending it, without knowing it advance the interests of the society and afford the means to the multiplication of the species.”

And more well-known was his affirmation in Wealth of Nations that an entrepreneur “intends only his own gain and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.”

In my classes, I have used the slides below to provide some data by which to evaluate what Smith proposed – has capitalism contributed to better lives for humanity?

These graphs do not discuss the net impacts of economic growth or the distribution of its advantages and disadvantages across social classes or the impacts of industrialization and post-industrialization on culture and politics.

Recently, I looked for and found graphs with data on the intersection of American capitalism and African Americans since the victory of the Civil Rights Movement in 1965.

As many know, the system of chattel slavery in the southern English colonies in what would become the United States and in the southern states under our federal union was institutionalized in the 18th century to be terminated after the Civil War. Then, after attempts by the federal government, initially with strong support from northern voters to legalize opportunity for former slaves in the southern states were abandoned, a system of segregation was imposed on African American citizens living in those states. The Civil Rights Movement successfully abolished Jim Crow segregation.

Thus, how African Americans did nor did not benefit from American capitalism over the last 55 years is important to determine.

This graph provides data on the earnings of different quintiles among African Americans in the years since the end of the Civil Rights Movement.

This graph provides data on the earnings by quintile of African Americans in 2017 compared to average earnings for all Americans.

While the percentage of African Americans in the top three quintiles is smaller than the average percentage of all Americans, African American households did include a substantial percentage of middle, upper-middle and upper-class households.

Not receiving the advantages of American capitalism over these years were 46% of African American households.

I was recently made aware of the reemergence in our recent protests and more of 19th century anarchism stepping right from the pages of Dostoevsky’s novel The Possessed and the writings of Georges Sorel on myth and violence. This anarchist impulse among us has not been much noticed or even superficially covered by our media and commentators.

Here is an article titled “No, We Should Not Condemn Uprisings Against Police Murders Like George Floyd’s” on taking down the system from Jacobin magazine.

Two weeks ago: “An angry crowd broke into the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct headquarters Thursday night and set fire to the building, capping another day of protests, many of them violent, across the Twin Cities.

The police station on E. Lake Street has been the epicenter of protests this week for people demanding justice after the death of George Floyd, who died Monday when a Minneapolis police officer set his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes.

Nearby, Minnehaha Lake Wine & Spirits, the target of looters the night before, also was set ablaze. As flames leapt, sharp explosions sounded as people threw bottles filled with accelerants or fired bullets into the fires.”

Here is the account of the eyewitness report taken from Crimethinc.com, a website with an attitude towards authority and order.

In reading this editorial and report, I realized that the anarchism expressed there was in a moral universe parallel to the Caux Round Table’s long-standing concern for the ethics of systems of authority and order – capitalism, government, civil society and ownership of wealth.

I thought that we should consider, in the context of widespread protest over inequality in this country, more fundamental questions of what is right to do when things go wrong.

I decided to go back to the beginning of the modern movement to deconstruct ideas and systems deemed wrongful for upholding inequality, the Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men, written by Jean Jacques Rousseau in 1754. His thesis that society must be blamed for inequality has inspired political movements from the Jacobins to Socialists, Communists, Syndicalists, Anarchists and National Socialists like Mussolini, Hitler and Pol Pot.

Rousseau’s inference was that once society and its inequalities in their current form are dissolved, some utopia will emerge to provide us with much better lives. Ironically, the word “utopia” was coined by Sir Thomas Moore to mean “no place,” borrowing from the Greek and making a pun on another Greek word “eu-topos,” signifying a place of happiness and goodness.

In the spirit of Rousseau, I propose to deconstruct his thesis and thereby deconstruct contemporary American anarchism. You can judge the success of my effort by reading my piece titled “Wherein Lies the Immorality of Inequality?”

I would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback

Herman Mulder, a colleague in The Netherlands, has written up his thoughts and recommendations in a piece titled “From Accidental Pain to Systemic Gain” for an action agenda going forward from the pandemic and, more recently, the concern for inequalities which could be remediated.

Herman has much experience in working to improve our decision-making with the Global Reporting Initiative and now with the effort to document impacts, assess them and in the way of the quality movement, achieve continuous improvements in the outcomes of our economic systems.

To me, Herman embodies what I have come to respect in so many Dutch – practical wisdom, personal modesty when blessed with talent and dedication to the common good.

I am very pleased that he has agreed to let us share his suggestions with you.

I have just received a response to the email I sent on facts about policing in the U.S. raising a question about “who” should be accepted as a guide to realities within the African American community or any other community for that matter?

Who, for example, speaks for white Americans, Hispanic Americans, the Chinese in Hong Kong, the religion of Islam, ad infinitum?

Jason Riley, whom I quoted in my cover note, wrote that in a commentary published by the Wall Street Journal. Riley’s views are different from those of many other African Americans. I am increasingly of the thought that we so often confront impasses when the perceptions of one culture – widely shared within that culture and arising from historical conditions – are foreign to those coming from another culture. The outsider is removed intellectually and emotionally from what seems so true and real to the insider. When we seek to become more aware of the “other,” a challenge is who speaks for a collective other, what texts, what artifacts express a core perception for that other?

I know of other African Americans who have the same general point of view as Riley and we all know from their public remarks and writings of notable African Americans who disagree with him.

In a way, the work of the Caux Round Table is to be between various “others,” both individual and group and through dialogue, seek to bring out what can be accepted and believed in by more than one tradition.

I have received many worried emails from our international network about the protests and violence here in the U.S. since the death of George Floyd. Some abroad may presume the worst about our institutions.

I have also read, more on the margins of our anguished public discussions than featured front and center by leading media outlets, a few commentators who have brought forth facts about policing in America, facts which should inform our thinking.

For example, Jason Riley, an African American, wrote in the Wall Street Journal today: “So long as blacks are committing more than half of all murders and robberies while making up only 13% of the population and so long as almost all their victims are their neighbors, their communities will draw the lion’s share of police attention. Defunding the police or making it easier to prosecute officers, will only result in more lives lost in those neighborhoods that most need protection.”

I feel an obligation from seeking to understand truth to communicate uncomfortable facts to our network internationally and so have written a short piece titled “Narrative and Reality: Racism and Policing in the United States.”

As the Caux Round Table advocates in its Principles for Government and as is implied in our Principles for Business, moral judgment depends on thoughtful discourse about reality. Morality cannot be the forceful imposition on others of untruth or personal prerogative.

Two phrases have come to mind. One is the Latin fiat justicia, ruat caelum – “Let there be justice though the Heavens Fall,” which is a call to irresponsibility and dismissal of consequences to others. The other is the quip of Mme. Roland, on the way to her execution by other Jacobins during the French Revolution, said: “Oh, Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!”

I would be very interested in your thoughts and feedback.

As you know, anger and resentments have once again boiled over in American cities. The fault line of displacement is along the interface of police and African Americans in the inner cities. But this time, protests calling for an end to racism and for justice were manifest in London and in Paris.

There is a time to reflect and a time to plan, but there is also a time for action. “There is a time for every purpose under Heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

Here in Minnesota, I was working the past few days with two of our colleagues – Matt Bostrom, former Sheriff of Ramsey County and now working on a Ph.D. in policing at Oxford and Richard Bents, a psychologist who helped us with a self-assessment psycho-metric questionnaire on leadership decision styles – to design a new method of hiring for character in new police officers.

Yesterday morning, I sent our proposal to the Governor of our state and the Commissioner of Public Safety.

For your information, you may find a copy of our proposal here.