Role of Business in the Modern World: Progress, Pressures and Profits for the Market Economy

by David R. Henderson

It is now a widely held view that a new era has dawned in which businesses must adopt a new conception of their mission, purpose and conduct, by endorsing and implementing corporate social responsibility. In The Role of Business in the Modern World, Professor David Henderson argues if we ask businesses to achieve broader social goals, we risk undermining the very system in which business activity leads to opportunity and prosperity. Professor Henderson describes the unprecedented material progress that has occurred in the last century as a result of the wide-ranging entrepreneurial opportunities and competitive pressures that exist within a market economy. The material prosperity created by the activities of business is threatened by the 'global salvationist consensus' that has arisen in recent years and which seeks to change the role of business via the doctrine of corporate social responsibility. Professor Henderson shows that this consensus is based upon a set of fallacious beliefs about the nature of capitalism, profiteering and business enterprise.

Genres: Economics

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 31, 2004

About the author

Professor of economics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Fraser Institute and Independent Institute, editor of The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics. Henderson also blogs for the economics blog EconLog along with Bryan Caplan.
From 1982 to 1984, he was the senior economist for health policy and, from 1983 to 1984, the senior economist for energy policy, with President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers.
Born and raised in Canada, Henderson moved to the United States in 1972 to pursue his Ph.D. in economics at UCLA. He became a U.S. citizen in 1986.