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

If you are a proponent or an opponent of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) issue, you will want to read this great book which is based upon a lecture series by the author. Henderson points out that the purpose of business is to drive the economic engine of society and that when NGOs and activists attempt to co-opt the corporation to other non-business purposes, society misses a key component in its development and is therefore sub-optimized. Indeed, he says that companies are not designed to be engines of social progress, and that when companies are asked by NGOs and activists to assume that role they can perform it very poorly. All analysts of anti-corporate movements should read this excellent work.