Category: Events

The Democratic Socialists of America recently released their manifesto, which you can read here.

These new American socialists are getting a lot of attention and winning elections with their unhappiness and their ideas for a better, “take-care-of-me-please” society and economy.

So, how does their manifesto compare to the Caux Round Table Principles for Business?

Please join us for an in-person round table over lunch at noon on Thursday, September 10, in Landmark Center to share your thoughts and reactions and what you think it means for our future.

Cost to attend is $20, which you can pay at the door.

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Relatedly, I recently shared mine in a piece for American Greatness.  The August issue of Pegasus will also touch on this.

The discussion will last between an hour and hour and a half.

One can say with some certainty that socialization drives human motivations, success and failures and that socialization is driven by one’s relationship to technology.  Fire was a technology.  Planting grain was a technology.  Making blades from stone was a technology. Putting a string to a pliable stick to make a bow was a technology.  Smelting metal tools from ore was a technology.  Alphabets were a technology.  For Adam Smith, the “factory” was a technology that permitted creation of the “wealth” of nations.  AI is also a technology.

What if the socialization coming from the use of AI is learned helplessness, other-directed personalities with no sense of meaning in life and an inability to commit and the evaporation of personal agency – all resulting from dependency on what the AI algorithms tell us to do and what to believe?

Mark Zuckeberg’s recent essay reveals Zuckerberg’s anxieties – what is he giving us?

There is the story of Jesus on the mountain top with Satan as a caution about technology.

Satan took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.   “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” (One can think of what Satan offered as highly functional human technologies.)

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan!  For it is written: Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.”  Then Satan left him and angels came and attended him.

Please join us at 9:00 am (CDT) on Thursday, August 27 on Zoom for a round table discussion of AI and share your optimisms and your concerns.

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Event will last about an hour.

Please join us at 9:00 am (CDT) on Tuesday, July 21, on Zoom for a round table discussion on the U.S. Declaration of Independence and its impact for good and/or its disappointments over the last 250 years.

Sir John Glubb wrote a paper pointing out that the average lifespan of a great regime, dynasty or empire, over the centuries, has been 250 years.

With that in mind, is, as Donald Trump likes to boast, the United States still the greatest, the winningest nation ever, with nothing to worry about in the years to come?

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Event will last about an hour.

Is war-fighting unidimensional (the clash of the big battalions) or multi-dimensional (morale, will, economics)?

Clausewitz (1838) wrote a lot about “the battle,” but never considered “the battle” as sufficient unto itself in bringing an enemy to acceptance of defeat and surrender of will to assert its moral goals.

Similarly, Sun Tzu (544–496 BC) had pointed out the high value-added of understanding and then disabling an enemy’s strategy.

Consider how the Ukrainians have fought the Russians to a standstill and are now capable of carrying “the battle” deep in the Russian homeland.  That’s tenacity and innovation at work. Turns out the Ukrainians had some high “cards” that Donald Trump overlooked.

What are the Iranians fighting for?

What is Donald Trump fighting for?

What do Iran’s neighbors need and want to advance their futures?

Clausewitz most famously wrote that war is an extension of politics by other means.  So, in war, politics must never be discounted.  In Iran, maybe regime change needs to come before “the battle” can win the war?

What is the role of alliances?

A Caux Round Table perspective on war would start from setting moral standards and rules of right and wrong in going to war and in fighting and killing others.  Just war theory, the Hague and Geneva Conventions, 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war; the United Nations compact among sovereign nations, etc.

Please join us at 9:00 am (CDT) on Tuesday, June 2, for a Zoom round table on what should be the lessons learned, so far, from the Israeli/U.S. attack on Iran.

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Event will last about an hour.

The war with Iran raises many concerns: issues of strategy and purpose, law and morality,  intemperance and intolerance, retributive justice and forgiveness, fear and suspicion, religion and compassion and human arrogance and frailty.

The Caux Round Table has long provided its good offices to convene round tables for the exchange of views, perceptions, judgments, fears and aspirations, even passions, without rancor or disparagement.  At times, process seems more needed than immediate affirmation of another’s beliefs.

Please join us for an in-person round table over lunch to reflect on the war with Iran and its consequences for all at noon on Thursday, April 30, in room 430 in Landmark Center in St. Paul.

Registration and lunch will begin at 11:30 am.

Cost to attend is $20, which you can pay at the door.

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Event will last between an hour and hour and a half.

What lessons should we learn from Jeffrey Epstein’s successes in accessing social and financial capitals from a network of elite cronies and supportive women?  Was it just the sex or was it more the money to be made from insider deals and gaining access to insider information?

Could it be as simple as Epstein finding willing co-conspirators in contributing a fin d’empire misadventure, contributing to the failure of the American experiment in ordered liberty?

Did his charm and talents not degrade liberty into decadence?

Consider the social, cultural, financial, commercial and political statuses of his “pals,” as revealed in the released emails.

Elite failure with sinister implications for our future?

Please join us at 9:00 am (CDT) on Thursday, April 9, on Zoom to discuss the Epstein contagion.

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

By the way, March Pegasus will also be on this topic.

The event will last about an hour.

Please join us at 9:00 am (CDT) on Monday, March 9 on Zoom to celebrate the release of our new book, Adam Smith and Modern Economics: Reclaiming the Moral High Ground!

The book was planned to commemorate one of the most significant steps forward in Western intellectual history and in its political and economic production of modern civilization – the publication of Adam Smith’s book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (more commonly known as The Wealth of Nations) 250 years ago this March 9, 2026.

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Event will last about an hour.

Please join us for an in-person round table over lunch at noon on Thursday, February 26, in Landmark Center to get an update on what we’ve been doing for St. Paul’s future since our last round table back in mid-October kicked-off the effort to use our good offices to bring people together, stimulate ideas and insights and identify growth assets in St. Paul.

After the report, we would like to listen and learn from you ideas and concerns for St. Paul’s future now that we have a new mayor and the attention of a number of civic leaders.

Cost to attend is $20, which you can pay at the door.

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Event will last between an hour and hour and a half.

It has been years – maybe never – since Minnesota, where we’re based, was a daily news lead around the country and world for over a week.  And the news has not been “nice.”  For some, it seems to be the harbinger of worse days to come for our republic, now 250 years old and slowing down in mind, heart and spirit.

Please join us, on short notice, at 9:00 am (CST) next Wednesday, February 4, for an emergency Zoom round table to discuss how we got here and where we go from here?

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Event will last about an hour.

Given that the week between Christmas and New Years tends to be a slower one for many, we would like to invite you to reflect with us.

The Chinese Book of Changes (Yijing) concentrates the mind on where we are and where we are going.  In 1858, future American President Abraham Lincoln put the politics of a divided country on a timeline:

“If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do and how to do it.”

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar says to the Soothsayer, “The Ides of March have come!”  The Soothsayer wisely replies, “Aye Caesar, but not gone.”

Should our New Year’s resolutions be attempts to overcome the past or more resilient actions to meet the future?

Please join us at 9:00 am (CST) on Tuesday, December 30, for a Zoom round table on what we might learn from 2025 and what might we expect in 2026 with wars, AI, the value of the dollar, the results of the November 2026 American election, self-proclaimed civilization states like Russia and China, hurricanes and drought, …

To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Event will last about an hour.

Looking forward to your prognostications.