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Fresh Air

Did Jack Welch Break Capitalism?

Fresh Air

NPR

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.434.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The legendary GE CEO wowed investors and mingled with celebrities. But New York Times correspondent David Gelles says Welch's aggressive tactics also caused irreparable harm to American industry. His book is The Man Who Broke Capitalism.

David Bianculli reviews a Netflix comedy special by the late Norm Macdonald.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies, Infra Terry Gross. If you're concerned about the growing

0:05.2

disparities of wealth and income in the United States, as well as the decline in unionization,

0:10.9

and the fact that our economy seems dominated by corporations committed to downsizing, outsourcing,

0:16.8

offshoring, and financial manipulation, our guest, New York Times correspondent David Gellis,

0:22.6

says that to a remarkable degree, these trends can be traced to the career of one man.

0:27.6

Jack Welch was the chief executive of the General Electric Corporation for the last two decades

0:33.4

of the 20th century. In a new book, Gellis says Welch's ruthless cost-cutting and single-minded

0:39.2

focus on quarterly earnings transformed GE and made him a celebrity CEO, a darling of Wall Street

0:46.2

whose methods were widely praised and copied by other corporate managers. But Gellis argues that

0:52.2

the spread of Welch's management principles was bad for workers, bad for the economy,

0:57.3

and ultimately bad for GE and the companies that followed his lead. David Gellis is a correspondent

1:03.3

on the climate desk at the New York Times, covering the intersection of public policy and the

1:07.8

private sector. Before that, he was a reporter and columnist for the business section for eight

1:12.6

years. Before joining the Times in 2013, he was a reporter for the Financial Times. His new book is

1:19.2

The Man Who Broke Capitalism, how Jack Welch gutted the heartland and crushed the soul of corporate

1:25.2

America and how to undo his legacy. Well, David Gellis, welcome to Fresh Air. You know, Jack Welch

1:31.9

took over General Electric in 1981 and I remember it as a company that sold toasters and appliances

1:38.0

and dishwashers and refrigerators. This was a company founded by Thomas Edison, almost 100 years

1:43.0

before, give us a sense of GE's role in the American economy and American life back then.

1:49.0

As I dug into the history of GE, I found it hard to overstate. Not only the impact that GE still had

1:58.7

in 1981 when Jack took over, but really its role in the history of American industry for the

2:06.6

better part of this century before that. This was the company that brought us electric light bulbs,

...

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