ИПИ Библиотека

David Henderson examines the role and conduct of business today, against the background of changes over the last sixty years

"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 that now, as in the past, the primary role of business is to act as a vehicle for economic progress. This role depends upon business enterprises operating with the framework of a competitive market economy. 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.
"

David Henderson

David Henderson is an economist. He was the Head of the Economics and Statistics Department at the OECD in 1984–1992. Before that he worked as an academic economist in Britain, first at Oxford (Fellow of Lincoln College) and later at University College London (Professor of Economics, 1975–1983); as a British civil servant (first as an Economic Advisor in KM Treasury, and later as Chief Economist in the UK Ministry of Aviation); and as a staff member of the World Bank (1969–1975). In 1985 he gave the BBC Reith Lectures, which were published in the book Innocence and Design: The Influence of Economic Ideas on Policy (Blackwell, 1986).

Since leaving the OECD, Henderson has been an independent author and consultant, and has acted as Visiting Fellow or Professor at the OECD Development Centre (Paris), the Centre for European Policy Studies (Brussels), Monash University, the Fondation National des Scences Politiques, the University of Melbourne, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the New Zeland Business Roundtable, and the Melboourne Business School. Recently, he has been a Visiting Professor at the Westminster Business School.

In 1992, Henderson was appointed to the Order of St Michael and StSt George as a Knight Commander.

Henderson is prominent as a global warming skeptic and has been critical of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, particularly the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, and the Stern Review of the economics of global warming. He has also published books that strongly criticize "corporate social responsibility".