ABSTRACT
The role of businesses as vehicles for economic progress is not one that individual enterprises consciously set out to play. The corporate social responsibility (CSR) is presented as a far-reaching creative response by business to new problems and challenges. Especially harmful are attempts, whether by governments or by businesses in the name of CSR and ‘global corporate citizenship’, to regulate the world as a whole. CSR embodies the notion that environmental and social progress lies in making norms and standards more stringent and more uniform, in part by corporations acting on their own account. The case against CSR is not that it would necessarily be bad for profits, but that, whatever its effects on enterprise profitability in particular cases, it would make people in general poorer by weakening the performance of business enterprises in their primary role. The case for private business has always rested on the links between private ownership, competition and economic freedom within a market-directed economy.
