IF this book had been called The Future of Private
Business it would have been better named. There is nothing about enterprise in it. Its thesis is that the existing British Cornpany Law should be amended so as to impose upon companies obligations not only to their shareholders but also to their workers, the community and the consumer. That such obligations should exist and should be recognised is obvious. What is not obvious is the reason why company law should be completely reformed to secure for them legal recognition in a new form. All the elements to which Mr. Goyder refers have their interests protected in some form by existing law. In any case no company can consistently ignore those interests and survive. And if any company is determined to do just that it cannot be prevented from committing suicide by Act of Parliament. To do Mr. Goyder justice he recognises all these
objections at one point or another in his book. When he says " No change in law or in company structure can, of itself, bring about a new spirit in industry " he is speak- ing tha plain truth. But, since he does say it, it is difficult to see what the book is all about. The explanation certainly does not lie in his neat opposite statement that " neither can a new spirit in industry come about without a change in law and company structure," for that statement is nonsensical. The trouble about Mr. Goyder's new order, which he describes as an order containing elements of both Capitalism and Socialism, is that it does nothing to help, and could do,a great deal to hinder, the one element without which neither Capitalism nor Socialism can succeed—enterprise. W. T.
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