Category: Events

Please join us for an in-person round table at 9:00 am on Tuesday, June 28, at Landmark Center to consider the state of our constitutional republic.  Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives allege an unconstitutional insurrection occurred on January 6, 2021; Dinesh D’Souza alleges in his new documentary, 2,000 Mules, an unconstitutional stuffing of ballot boxes funded by plutocrats to steal the presidency in 2020.

Fifty years ago, the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters by agents of the executive branch took place on June 17.  As a result, President Nixon resigned from office after the constitutional process of impeachment for abuse of power exposed his personal involvement in a cover-up of that burglary.  Was that extra-constitutional political act of seeking electoral advantage the beginning of the erosion of our constitutional democracy?

The issues we face today were clearly and precisely foreseen in the Federalist Papers.

Madison wrote that a well-constructed republic has a “tendency to break and control the violence of faction.”  Faction, he said, introduces into public councils “instability, injustice and confusion.”  Sounds like the USA of our time.

Federalist 51 advises that a republic must be so contrived that the interior structure of the government and its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.  “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition;” “… the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other – that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.”

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

When a jury in Washington, D.C. condones lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, can federal courts ply their proper role in providing a check on the police power of the federal government?  If law is not enforced, of what use is a constitution to check the corrupting vice and destructive power of faction?

In his written Farewell Address to the American people, Washington wrote:

“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations under whatever plausible character with the real design to direct, control, counteract or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency.  They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community.

However, combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Let me now take a more comprehensive view and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.”

So, right now, in our time, what is the role for morality in our republic?  Or rather, whose morality?

Cost to attend is $10 per person.

A light breakfast will be served beginning at 8:30 am.

To register, please email Jed at jed@cauxroundtable.net.

The event will last about an hour and a half.

Recently in Russia, there was a commemoration of victory over the German National Socialist Regime in World War II.  In his speech, President Putin spoke more pointedly, if vaguely, about his intentions with the invasion of Ukraine.

That invasion has brought attention to big questions: Has the post WWII international order come to an end?  Has the Enlightenment run out of gas?  How successful will Russia and China be in their new alliance with a new vision of our world in deference to ethnic theocracies?  Will there be famine among the poor and the innocent?  What is the meaning of Europe?  Are Russians part of Europe?  Do we need ethical principles?  What of global capitalism with inflation and supply chain dysfunctions?

Please join us at 9:00 am (CST) on Tuesday, May 24, for a Zoom round table on these questions and other relevant points.

To register, please email Jed at jed@cauxroundtable.net.

The event is free and will last about an hour.

The Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism will present its 2021 Dayton Awards at 8:30 am on Friday, May 6 at the Landmark Center in St. Paul and you are invited to join us. Please register here.

The 2021 Dayton Awards will be presented to Medaria Arradondo, former Chief of Police for the City of Minneapolis, and Todd Axtell, retiring Chief of Police for the City of St. Paul, for their upholding the demanding fiduciary responsibility of public office as a public trust.

The Caux Round Table’s Principles for Government affirm that:

• Power brings responsibility. Power is a necessary moral circumstance in that it binds the actions of one to the welfare of others.
• Therefore, the power given by public office is held in trust for the benefit of the community and its citizens. Officials are custodians only of the powers they hold. They have no personal entitlement to office or the prerogatives thereof.
• The state is the servant and agent of higher ends. It is subordinate to society. Public power is to be exercised within a framework of moral responsibility for the welfare of others.

The Caux Round Table was founded to celebrate that legacy and promote its principles, which are universal, of social responsibility in business and public trust in government. We seek to recognize those Minnesotans who today, in this time of crisis, carry forward that legacy and those ideals – no matter what their power or position.

The event is free and will last about an hour.

Space is limited. Please register.

The Landmark Center is located at 75 West Fifth Street in downtown St. Paul.

We’ll be in room 326.

The recipient of the 2019 Dayton Award was Douglas M. Baker Jr., then CEO of Ecolab and the recipients of the 2020 Dayton Award were Andrew Cecere, CEO of USBank and Don and Sondra Samuels.

Please join us for a special round table event with Mary Kowalski, owner of Kowalski’s Markets, and Kris Kowalski Christiansen, CEO of Kowalski’s Markets, at 9:30 am on Tuesday, April 26, at their headquarters in Woodbury.

Mary and Kris will discuss with us the concept of a civic business – what it is, how it works and how their employees contribute – and how other businesses can adopt this model.

Here’s a short video of Mary and Kris discussing a civic business.

Coincidentally, we will be including an article by Mary on this very issue in this month’s edition of Pegasus.

The event is free and refreshments will be served.

To register, please email Jed at jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Kowalski’s is located at 8505 Valley Creek Road in Woodbury.

The event will conclude at 11:00 am.

Please join us for an in-person round table on the Russian invasion of Ukraine at 9:00 am on Wednesday, April 6 at Landmark Center in St. Paul.

T.S. Eliot said that April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.  And here we are, in April.

But we are not in Ukraine, where the spring thaw has bogged down Russian tanks.

Have we entered a new age?  A darker one, with more intolerance and less freedom?  An age of elites imposing their ways on the “deplorables”?

In our aspirations, have we overlooked the insight of Thomas Hobbes and Herbert Spencer that power, not love, is the foundation of life?

Registration and a light breakfast will begin at 8:30 am.

The cost to attend is $10.00 per person.

To register, please email Jed at jed@cauxroundtable.net.

On a related note, you may find it of interest to read Vladimir Putin’s article on the Rus of July 2021, where he makes his case for the invasion.  You can read it here.

Please join us for a special round table event with Mary Kowalski, owner of Kowalski’s Markets, and Kris Kowalski Christiansen, CEO of Kowalski’s Markets, at 9:30 am on Tuesday, April 26, at their headquarters in Woodbury.

Mary and Kris will discuss with us the concept of a civic business – what it is, how it works and how their employees contribute – and how other businesses can adopt this model.

Here’s a short video of Mary and Kris discussing a civic business.

Coincidentally, we will be including an article by Mary on this very issue in this month’s edition of Pegasus.

The event is free and refreshments will be served.

To register, please email Jed at jed@cauxroundtable.net.

Kowalski’s is located at 8505 Valley Creek Road in Woodbury.

The event will conclude at 11:00 am.

The Caux Round Table has recently published Klaus Leisinger‘s new book, Integrity in Business and Society, because it is an excellent, one-stop shop for learning about the praxis of ethics.

Norms – good and bad – can be found, created and debated, to be sure, but can they be lived just as easily?

Klaus, an experienced business executive and wise counselor, will join us again by Zoom to discuss these and other practical questions at 9:00 am (CST) on Thursday, January 20 and you are invited to join us.

To register, please click here.

The event is free and will last about an hour.

In addition to being able to access the event through Eventbrite, we will also email you the Zoom link directly the day before the event.

he Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism, with support from the Citizens League, Growth & Justice, Center of the American Experiment and Humphrey School of Public Affairs, invites you to a special Zoom round table on John Brandl’s “uncommon quest for common ground” at 9:00 am on Tuesday, December 28.

Mitch Pearlstein, whose initiative launched the Brandl program in 2008, will join us to recall his personal experience with John.

Our combined efforts reflect the leadership of John Brandl, former state legislator and Dean of the Humphrey Institute (now School).  John, a life-long Democrat, took, as his True North, the “uncommon quest for common ground.”  John was loath to “dis-include” anyone or their personal truths and narratives.  But he quietly and engagingly sought to find the harmonies and goodness which can affirm our common humanity.

This past July, the Pew Research Center surveyed 10,221 American adults.  Recently, it released a report categorizing all Americans as belonging to one or another of nine “tribes” in our politics.  These rivalrous tribes are: 1) faith and flag conservatives; 2) committed conservatives; 3) populist right; 4) ambivalent right; 5) stressed sideliners; 6) outsider left; 7) Democrat mainstays; 8) establishment liberals; 9) and progressive left.

For two decades, other commentators and analysts of our culture and politics have proposed that we Americans, in our culture and politics, have taken on a bimodal distribution of dispositions as follows:

In contrast to the bimodal distribution of political beliefs and agendas, past understandings of the American democracy (such as Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America) were more in line with a normal gaussian distribution of individual orientations as follows:

The urgent question is whether the American experiment in ordered liberty is collapsing, whether there is any common good left, but only various factional interests and ideologies, just as Madison feared might happen.

Knowing that most great nations and powers lasted about 250 years before disintegrating or collapsing, what kind of program might be most effective at this point in our nation’s history to improve our prospects?

To register, please click here.

The event is free and will last about an hour.

The Zoom link will be emailed to registrants the day before the event.

Please join us for a special Zoom round table at 9:00 am (CST) on Thursday, December 9, with our colleague, Klaus Leisinger, on the release of his new book, Integrity in Business and Society.

Today, every self-respecting company has a mission statement assuring that the integrity of its actions is one of its highest values. Nevertheless, the limits of legality are often tested in everyday life, “service by the book” is merely provided in the environmental area, although proactive action would be necessary and inhumane working conditions are made possible, again and again, with legal tricks.

How can this be? Are these one-off lapses on the part of individual managers and thus, the exception to an otherwise upright rule? In this book, Klaus Leisinger shows that integrity is, above all, a personal responsibility: Integre leaders look closely, act to the best of their knowledge and conscience and lead by example. When they make promises, they keep them. When they make mistakes, they stand up for them and correct them. They motivate the people working in the company through fairness and recognition and convey to them that they are part of something they can stand up for with pride. With a minimum of academic theory, the author presents practical insights and tools that help deal with moral dilemmas in everyday business life and develop solutions based on universally valid values.

To register, please click here.

This is the second in a series of Zoom round table events with authors, business leaders and think tank leaders.

The event is free and will last about an hour.

With sustainability, climate change and asking that companies have a “purpose,” which is not simply the making of profits, the narratives of ethics and morality predominate in many discussions of capitalism.

Yet, is it not true that systems are complex and multiple action domains each contribute separately to the outcomes, whatever they may be?

It would be salutary, therefore, to bring into our considerations of capitalist enterprise economics. The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) concentrates on economic realities and thinking. They see themselves in the intellectual tradition of Frederic Bastiat, who noticed the power of “opportunity cost” in our thinking about prices and spending.

At 9:00 am (CST) on Thursday, December 2, we invite you to join us in a webinar over Zoom to learn more about AIER from Brad DeVos, its interim President.

Brad DeVos joined AIER in 2017. He earned a B.S. in economics and a B.A. in urban studies from the College of Charleston, as well as an associates degree in computer aided design and drafting. Brad is a member of the historic Mont Pelerin Society, a L.E.E.D. Accredited Professional, a graduate of the Atlas Think Tank Leadership Academy and a member of the Foundation for Economic Education’s Faculty Network.
Through the Bastiat Society program, AIER makes the ideas that enable peaceful trade and human flourishing available to the everyday business person. They are the only international network of business people committed to advancing peaceful trade and human flourishing.

AIER’s Bastiat Society is geared for the business community—a highly leveraged, influential, and engaged audience. Apart from being active in the society, their members and attendees are also involved in various local issues, civic groups, trade associations and fraternal organizations.

The problem is—of all potential audiences for academic ideas—the business community is among the hardest to reach. They have companies to run, employees to take care of and families who deserve their attention.

The typical business person has limited spare time and is reluctant to take on additional commitments. Yet, these people also have the most to lose if capitalism is undermined and economic freedom is replaced by central planning and more government intervention.

The event is free and will last about an hour.

Please register here.

The Zoom link will be emailed to registrants the day before the event.

Steve Young, Global Executive Director of the Caux Round Table, will moderate.

To learn more about AIER, please visit their website at: www.aier.org