"In engaging and refreshingly candid writing, Henderson sets out her vision of equitable and sustainable capitalism and enumerates the changes needed to get us there. Companies need to embrace a sense of purpose beyond maximizing profits, find new business opportunities to meet society’s needs, and consider the welfare of all stakeholders. Investors need to focus on the long term and consider social and environmental impact. Governments need to regulate the market more strictly and impose a tax on carbon. Finally, all sectors need to work together to address global challenges through collective action. Not only would these changes create a better world, Henderson asserts, but also they would lead to more profitable companies and a stronger economy. Her blueprint may sound impossible, yet Henderson’s optimism is founded on deep expertise as a scholar who has worked closely with corporate leaders. [...] But if all these recommendations are good for business, why do so many companies strenuously resist change? Henderson’s early work is relevant, here. She is an expert on how companies confront radical change. [...] Skeptics of capitalism will identify with Henderson’s sharp criticism, while supporters will appreciate the future vision she paints of a noble and more constructive capitalism. The book’s promise is to move beyond the shallow and reductive debates about whether capitalism is good or evil to a deeper discussion of what it would take to redirect its undeniable power toward equity and sustainability. [...] Unlike other recent critiques of capitalism, such as Anand Giridharadas’ Winners Take All, Henderson focuses on the solutions. Drawing from the HBS case method, she teaches through complex real-life stories. [...] The final chapter, 'Pebbles in an Avalanche,' offers six simple things that each of us can do to contribute to the effort: discover your own purpose; collaborate with those who share your goals; bring your values to work; work for an NGO to shame companies into action or for an impact investor to finance change; and remember that you can’t change the world by yourself."

"Henderson is adamant that purpose-driven companies are at the heart of systemic rethinking of capitalism. (She has worked with Blueprint for Better Business, a UK charity I chair, which challenges and encourages companies to be a force for good in society.) Such faith in well-run, purpose-led, self-regulating businesses will invite some scepticism. To many, purpose seems like motherhood and apple pie [...]. But she is clear-eyed enough to acknowledge where and why well-meaning efforts, such as a Unilever-led drive to make palm oil a sustainable ingredient, have fallen short. [...] Henderson, discussing the pre-Covid global challenges for free-market democracies, frames it this way: 'Business must become an active partner in shoring up the inclusive institutions that we have and in building the new ones that we need.' 'This is not a question of supporting specific policies or of pushing a particular set of political values. This is about supporting the foundations of our society.' The question, she adds, should not be: ‘Would this particular policy benefit me?’ but, ‘How do we protect the institutions that have made us rich and free?’ To that question, she might now add: 'and ensured our survival'. The scale of government intervention is likely to rebalance the forces of capitalism for the better, offsetting corporate self-interest with what Henderson calls a 'shared sense of the right thing' and an inevitably larger role for the state."

"To combat 'massive environmental degradation, economic inequality, and institutional collapse,' Henderson identifies five key areas of reform: (1) creating shared value between businesses and consumers, (2) building 'purpose-driven' organizations, (3) establishing financial metrics to measure the environmental and social impact of business practices, (4) cooperating on sustainable, self-regulatory standards across whole industries, (5) private sector support for democratic reforms. What makes Henderson’s arguments convincing is that she backs her claims that such changes are possible by citing numerous examples. The left impression is that it is possible. [...] In closing, Henderson asks and answers the question: What will a reimagined capitalism look like? Without providing the answer, I encourage the reader to read the book. For me, the book was a revelation. A book I have been looking for. A book that confirmed and advanced my thinking on the future role of the modern corporation."

"Rebecca Henderson’s Reimagining Capitalism In a World on Fire sets out to demonstrate how businesses, acting voluntarily, can fix the world by rethinking the purpose of business and its role in society. [...] Throughout the book, she marshals her extensive experience in business—conveyed with anecdotes and narratives—as a kind of case study for her project of prescribing solutions to what she regards as the biggest problems facing the world today. Any book claiming to show how capitalism can (or cannot) solve the world’s problems must, of course, identify what capitalism is. Although Henderson does openly pose the question 'what is capitalism?' at the outset, she fails to provide a single coherent answer. Instead, she lays out political developments over the past eighty years and posits a variety of 'forms' of capitalism such as 'unconstrained,' 'modern,' 'free market,' 'crony,' and 'sustainable.' Henderson’s lack of a clear definition undermines her project of 'reimagining capitalism' and muddies the reader’s understanding of another crucial question: Do we have a system of capitalism now? The simple answer to that question is no, the United States currently has a mixed economy—and has for a long time. [...] Not only does she maintain that free markets cannot solve these alleged problems, but she lays the blame for all of them squarely on the 'beautiful' but supposedly 'mistaken' ideas that she attributes to Milton Friedman and the Chicago School. [...] Throughout the book, she continually blames nonexistent free markets for problems created by government interventions and restrictions on those observably unfree markets. She documents how some businesses behave (some for good and some for ill, in her estimate), but does so without a systematic investigation of the conditions—the laws, regulations, and ultimately the politico-economic system—in which they make these decisions. [...] Although Henderson never explicitly states the moral approach behind her prescriptions, it is altruism—the view that it is immoral to act in one’s own self-interest and that people should sacrifice for others. This leads her to the notion that those who don’t voluntarily choose to sacrifice must be forced to in the name of the 'public good'—that is, it leads her to the same collectivism that undergirded every tyrannical regime of the 20th century. Thus, although Henderson promises to demonstrate how a 'reimagined capitalism' might 'rescue a world on fire,' her book does not correctly identify capitalism, never mind reimagine it. Instead, she attacks its very foundations."