The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America―and How to Undo His Legacy by David Gelles

The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America―and How to Undo His Legacy

by David Gelles

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Business & Finance

Jack Welch's General Electric was the template for how American business came to run: mass layoffs, dealmaking, financialization and a fixation on the stock price. Gelles traces how that playbook spread, and argues you can see the damage in hollowed-out manufacturing and record inequality.

Core ideas
  • From industry to finance: GE cut about a tenth of its workforce yearly, became in effect an unregulated bank, and went from the world's most valuable company in 1993 to a 2008 bailout.
  • The alumni: Executives trained under Welch ran sixteen public companies, mostly as cost cutters, and Boeing and Home Depot carry his methods.
  • Another way: Unilever, PayPal, Patagonia and Seventh Generation are held up as models of a capitalism that answers to more than shareholders.
Published2022
Pages272
ISBN9781982176440
ReadJun 2025

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