Vendors Capitalism

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Vendors' Capitalism

Author : Ingrid Bleynat
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 1503628302
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (36 download)

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Book Synopsis Vendors' Capitalism by : Ingrid Bleynat

Download or read book Vendors' Capitalism written by Ingrid Bleynat and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mexico City's public markets were integral to the country's economic development, bolstering the expansion of capitalism from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. These publicly owned and operated markets supplied households with everyday necessities and generated revenue for local authorities. At the same time, they were embedded in a wider network of economic and social relations that gave market vendors an influence far beyond the running of their stalls. As they fed the capital's population, these vendors fought to protect their own livelihoods, shaping the public sphere and broadening the scope of popular politics. Vendors' Capitalism argues for the centrality of Mexico City's public markets to the political economy of the city from the restoration of the Republic in 1867 to the heyday of the Mexican miracle and the PRI in the 1960s. Each day vendors interacted with customers, suppliers, government officials, and politicians, and the multiple conflicts that arose repeatedly tested the institutional capacity of the state. Through a close reading of the archives and an analysis of vendors' intersecting economic and political lives, Ingrid Bleynat explores the dynamics, as well as the limits, of capitalist development in Mexico.

Capitalism from Below

Author : Victor Nee
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674065395
Total Pages : 450 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Capitalism from Below by : Victor Nee

Download or read book Capitalism from Below written by Victor Nee and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-19 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 630 million Chinese escaped poverty since the 1980s, the largest decrease in poverty in history. Studying 700 manufacturing firms in the Yangzi region, the authors argue that the engine of China’s economic miracle—private enterprise—did not originate at the top but bubbled up from below, overcoming initial obstacles set up by the government.

The Enlightened Capitalists

Author : James O'Toole
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062880268
Total Pages : 592 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (628 download)

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Book Synopsis The Enlightened Capitalists by : James O'Toole

Download or read book The Enlightened Capitalists written by James O'Toole and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expert on ethical leadership analyzes the complicated history of business people who tried to marry the pursuit of profits with virtuous organizational practices—from British industrialist Robert Owen to American retailer John Cash Penney and jeans maker Levi Strauss to such modern-day entrepreneurs Anita Roddick and Tom Chappell. Today’s business leaders are increasingly pressured by citizens, consumers, and government officials to address urgent social and environmental issues. Although some corporate executives remain deaf to such calls, over the last two centuries, a handful of business leaders in America and Britain have attempted to create business organizations that were both profitable and socially responsible. In The Enlightened Capitalists, James O’Toole tells the largely forgotten stories of men and women who adopted forward-thinking business practices designed to serve the needs of their employees, customers, communities, and the natural environment. They wanted to prove that executives didn’t have to make trade-offs between profit and virtue. Combining a wealth of research and vivid storytelling, O’Toole brings life to historical figures like William Lever, the inventor of bar soap who created the most profitable company in Britain and used his money to greatly improve the lives of his workers and their families. Eventually, he lost control of the company to creditors who promptly terminated the enlightened practices he had initiated—the fate of many idealistic capitalists. As a new generation attempts to address social problems through enlightened organizational leadership, O’Toole explores a major question being posed today in Britain and America: Are virtuous corporate practices compatible with shareholder capitalism?

Flexible Capitalism

Author : Jens Kjaerulff
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1782386165
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (823 download)

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Book Synopsis Flexible Capitalism by : Jens Kjaerulff

Download or read book Flexible Capitalism written by Jens Kjaerulff and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2015-03-01 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approaching “work” as at heart a practice of exchange, this volume explores sociality in work environments marked by the kind of structural changes that have come to define contemporary “flexible” capitalism. It introduces anthropological exchange theory to a wider readership, and shows how the perspective offers new ways to enquire about the flexible capitalism’s social dimensions. The essays contribute to a trans-disciplinary scholarship on contemporary economic practice and change by documenting how, across diverse settings, “gift-like” socialities proliferate, and even sustain the intensified flexible commoditization that more commonly is touted as tearing social relations apart. By interrogating a keenly debated contemporary work regime through an approach to sociality rooted in a rich and distinct anthropological legacy, the volume also makes a novel contribution to the anthropological literature on work and on exchange.

Conscious Capitalism, With a New Preface by the Authors

Author : John Mackey
Publisher : Harvard Business Review Press
ISBN 13 : 1625271751
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (252 download)

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Book Synopsis Conscious Capitalism, With a New Preface by the Authors by : John Mackey

Download or read book Conscious Capitalism, With a New Preface by the Authors written by John Mackey and published by Harvard Business Review Press. This book was released on 2014-01-07 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling book, now with a new preface by the authors At once a bold defense and reimagining of capitalism and a blueprint for a new system for doing business, Conscious Capitalism is for anyone hoping to build a more cooperative, humane, and positive future. Whole Foods Market cofounder John Mackey and professor and Conscious Capitalism, Inc. cofounder Raj Sisodia argue that both business and capitalism are inherently good, and they use some of today’s best-known and most successful companies to illustrate their point. From Southwest Airlines, UPS, and Tata to Costco, Panera, Google, the Container Store, and Amazon, today’s organizations are creating value for all stakeholders—including customers, employees, suppliers, investors, society, and the environment. Read this book and you’ll better understand how four specific tenets—higher purpose, stakeholder integration, conscious leadership, and conscious culture and management—can help build strong businesses, move capitalism closer to its highest potential, and foster a more positive environment for all of us.

Better Business

Author : Christopher Marquis
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 030024715X
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Better Business by : Christopher Marquis

Download or read book Better Business written by Christopher Marquis and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-13 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling look at the B Corp movement and why socially and environmentally responsible companies are vital for everyone’s future Businesses have a big role to play in a capitalist society. They can tip the scales toward the benefit of the few, with toxic side effects for all, or they can guide us toward better, more equitable long-term solutions. Christopher Marquis tells the story of the rise of a new corporate form—the B Corporation. Founded by a group of friends who met at Stanford, these companies undergo a rigorous certification process, overseen by the B Lab, and commit to putting social benefits, the rights of workers, community impact, and environmental stewardship on equal footing with financial shareholders. Informed by over a decade of research and animated by interviews with the movement’s founders and leading figures, Marquis’s book explores the rapid growth of companies choosing to certify as B Corps, both in the United States and internationally, and explains why the future of B Corporations is vital for us all.

I Love Capitalism!

Author : Ken Langone
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0735216258
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (352 download)

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Book Synopsis I Love Capitalism! by : Ken Langone

Download or read book I Love Capitalism! written by Ken Langone and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller Iconoclastic entrepreneur and New York legend Ken Langone tells the compelling story of how a poor boy from Long Island became one of America's most successful businessmen. Ken Langone has seen it all on his way to a net worth beyond his wildest dreams. A pillar of corporate America for decades, he's a co-founder of Home Depot, a former director of the New York Stock Exchange, and a world-class philanthropist (including $200 million for NYU's Langone Health). In this memoir he finally tells the story of his unlikely rise and controversial career. It's also a passionate defense of the American Dream -- of preserving a country in which any hungry kid can reach the maximum potential of his or her talents and work ethic. In a series of fascinating stories, Langone shows how he struggled to get an education, break into Wall Street, and scramble for an MBA at night while competing with privileged competitors by day. He shares how he learned how to evaluate what a business is worth and apply his street smarts to 8-figure and 9-figure deals . And he's not shy about discussing, for the first time, his epic legal and PR battle with former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer. His ultimate theme is that free enterprise is the key to giving everyone a leg up. As he writes: This book is my love song to capitalism. Capitalism works! And I'm living proof -- it works for everybody. Absolutely anybody is entitled to dream big, and absolutely everybody should dream big. I did. Show me where the silver spoon was in my mouth. I've got to argue profoundly and passionately: I'm the American Dream.

The Industrialists

Author : Jennifer Delton
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691203342
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis The Industrialists by : Jennifer Delton

Download or read book The Industrialists written by Jennifer Delton and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first complete history of US industry's most influential and controversial lobbyist Founded in 1895, the National Association of Manufacturers—NAM—helped make manufacturing the basis of the US economy and a major source of jobs in the twentieth century. The Industrialists traces the history of the advocacy group from its origins to today, examining its role in shaping modern capitalism, while also highlighting the many tensions and contradictions within the organization that sometimes hampered its mission. In this compelling book, Jennifer Delton argues that NAM—an organization best known for fighting unions, promoting "free enterprise," and defending corporate interests—was also surprisingly progressive. She shows how it encouraged companies to adopt innovations such as safety standards, workers' comp, and affirmative action, and worked with the US government and international organizations to promote the free exchange of goods and services across national borders. While NAM's modernizing and globalizing activities helped to make American industry the most profitable and productive in the world by midcentury, they also eventually led to deindustrialization, plant closings, and the decline of manufacturing jobs. Taking readers from the Progressive Era and the New Deal to the Reagan Revolution and the Trump presidency, The Industrialists is the story of a powerful organization that fought US manufacturing's political battles, created its economic infrastructure, and expanded its global markets—only to contribute to the widespread collapse of US manufacturing by the close of the twentieth century.

Profit with Honor

Author : Daniel Yankelovich
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300127421
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis Profit with Honor by : Daniel Yankelovich

Download or read book Profit with Honor written by Daniel Yankelovich and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This wise and optimistic book examines the rampant scandals that plague American corporations today and shows how companies can reverse the resulting climate of mistrust. By seizing the opportunity to address some of the nation’s—and the world’s—most serious problems, business can strengthen its reputation for integrity and service and advance to a new stage of ethical legitimacy. Daniel Yankelovich, a social scientist and an experienced member of the corporate boardroom, describes the toxic convergence of cultural and business trends that has led inexorably to corporate scandals. Yet he offers reassurance that opportunity exists for positive change. Creative business leaders can advance market capitalism to its next stage of evolution, building upon business norms that simultaneously emphasize the legitimacy of profit making and the importance of the care that companies give to employees, customers, and the larger society.The book asserts that American culture has abandoned its old tradition of enlightened self-interest, of “doing well by doing good.” A narrow legalism has taken over (“I didn’t break the law; therefore I didn’t do anything wrong”). Yankelovich argues that attempts to deal with such flawed ethical norms by means of more laws and regulations cannot succeed. He offers a series of case histories to show how and why stewardship ethics can strengthen individuals, corporations, the nation, and the world economy.

Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar

Author : Lydia Chavez
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822386488
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

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Book Synopsis Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar by : Lydia Chavez

Download or read book Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar written by Lydia Chavez and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2005-05-06 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Soviet Union dissolved, so did the easy credit, cheap oil, and subsidies it had provided to Cuba. The bottom fell out of the Cuban economy, and many expected that Castro’s revolution—the one that had inspired the Left throughout Latin America and elsewhere—would soon be gone as well. More than a decade later, the revolution lives on, albeit in a modified form. Following the collapse of Soviet communism, Castro legalized the dollar, opened the island to tourism, and allowed foreign investment, small-scale private enterprise, and remittances from exiles in Miami. Capitalism, God, and a Good Cigar describes what the changes implemented since the early 1990s have meant for ordinary Cubans: hotel workers, teachers, priests, factory workers, rap artists, writers, homemakers, and others. Based on reporting by journalists, writers, and documentary filmmakers since 2001, each of the essays collected here covers a particular dimension of contemporary Cuban society, revealing what it is like to have lived, for more than a decade, suspended between communism and capitalism. There are pieces on hip hop musicians, fiction writing and censorship, the state of ballet and the performing arts, and the role of computers and the Internet. Other essays address the shrinking yet still sizeable numbers of true believers in the promise of socialist revolution, the legendary cigar industry, the changing state of religion, the significance of the recent influx of money and people from Spain, and the tensions between recent Cuban emigrants and previous generations of exiles. Including more than seventy striking documentary photographs of Cuba’s people, countryside, and city streets, this richly illustrated collection offers keen, even-handed insights into the abundant ironies of life in Cuba today. Contributors. Juliana Barbassa, Ana Campoy, Mimi Chakarova, Lydia Chávez, John Coté, Julian Foley, Angel González, Megan Lardner, Ezequiel Minaya, Daniela Mohor, Archana Pyati, Alicia Roca, Olga R. Rodríguez, Bret Sigler, Annelise Wunderlich

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

Author : Shoshana Zuboff
Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 1610395700
Total Pages : 658 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by : Shoshana Zuboff

Download or read book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism written by Shoshana Zuboff and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior. In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth. Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification." The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit -- at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future. With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future -- if we let it.

Creating Modern Capitalism

Author : Thomas K. McCraw
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674256204
Total Pages : 760 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis Creating Modern Capitalism by : Thomas K. McCraw

Download or read book Creating Modern Capitalism written by Thomas K. McCraw and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1998-01-02 with total page 760 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What explains the national economic success of the United States, Britain, Germany, and Japan? What can be learned from the long-term championship performances of leading business firms in each country? How important were specific innovations by individual entrepreneurs? And in the end, what is the true nature of capitalist development?The Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Thomas K. McCraw and his coauthors present penetrating answers to these questions. Creating Modern Capitalism is the first book to explain for a broad audience the interconnections among technological innovation, management science, the power of entrepreneurship, and national economic growth. The authors approach each question from a comparative framework and with a unique triple focus on national economic systems, particular companies, and individual business leaders.Above all, the book focuses on how specific entrepreneurs influenced the economic success of their countries: Josiah Wedgwood and Henry Royce in Britain; August Thyssen and Georg von Siemens in Germany; Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan, and the two Thomas J. Watsons in the United States; Sakichi Toyoda, Masatoshi Ito, and Toshifumi Suzuki in Japan.The product of a three-year collaborative effort at the Harvard Business School, the book combines cutting-edge scholarship with a finely tuned sense of the art of management. It will engage general readers as well as those with a special interest in entrepreneurship and the evolution of national business systems.

Ownership

Author : Corey Rosen
Publisher : Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1523000848
Total Pages : 191 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis Ownership by : Corey Rosen

Download or read book Ownership written by Corey Rosen and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2022-09-13 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the William Foote Whyte and Kathleen King Whyte Book Prize from the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing Employee ownership creates stronger companies, helps workers build wealth, and fosters a fairer, more stable society. In this book, two leading experts show how it works-and how it can be greatly expanded. Why are wages stagnant and wealth inequality increasing? One factor has inexplicably been left out: who owns the companies that drive the economy. Ownership gives people a claim to the fruits of free enterprise. Employee ownership gives workers-the people who have a stake in the company-a fair chance to benefit from their labors. In three simple parts, Corey Rosen and John Case create a powerful argument for why employee ownership is the answer to capitalism's crisis and how to implement it: 1. What's wrong with what we have-The authors explain why companies usually end up being sold off to investors and the often-horrific consequences that result for workers, communities, and the environment. 2. How can we change things?-This section shows how overlooking ownership limits attempts to reform capitalism and why employee ownership is a realistic and practical way to save capitalism from its own excesses. 3. Reinventing capitalism for the 21st century-This section describes how employee ownership has been done, is being done, and can be expanded and gives examples of companies of all sizes and sectors.

The Market Revolution

Author : Charles Sellers
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199762422
Total Pages : 511 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis The Market Revolution by : Charles Sellers

Download or read book The Market Revolution written by Charles Sellers and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1994-05-19 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Market Revolution, one of America's most distinguished historians offers a major reinterpretation of a pivotal moment in United States history. Based on impeccable scholarship and written with grace and style, this volume provides a sweeping political and social history of the entire period from the diplomacy of John Quincy Adams to the birth of Mormonism under Joseph Smith, from Jackson's slaughter of the Indians in Georgia and Florida to the Depression of 1819, and from the growth of women's rights to the spread of the temperance movement. Equally important, he offers a provocative new way of looking at this crucial period, showing how the boom that followed the War of 1812 ignited a generational conflict over the republic's destiny, a struggle that changed America dramatically. Sellers stresses throughout that democracy was born in tension with capitalism, not as its natural political expression, and he shows how the massive national resistance to commercial interests ultimately rallied around Andrew Jackson. An unusually comprehensive blend of social, economic, political, religious, and cultural history, this accessible work provides a challenging analysis of this period, with important implications for the study of American history as a whole. It will revolutionize thinking about Jacksonian America.

The End of the Free Market

Author : Ian Bremmer
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101429453
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis The End of the Free Market by : Ian Bremmer

Download or read book The End of the Free Market written by Ian Bremmer and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-05-13 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding the rise of state capitalism and its threat to global free markets The End of the Free Market details the growing phenomenon of state capitalism, a system in which governments drive local economies through ownership of market-dominant companies and large pools of excess capital, using them for political gain. This trend threatens America's competitive edge and the conduct of free markets everywhere. An expert on the intersection of economics and politics, Ian Bremmer has followed the rise of state-owned firms in China, Russia, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Iran, Venezuela, and elsewhere. He demonstrates the growing challenge that state capitalism will pose for the entire global economy. Among the questions addressed: Are we on the brink of a new kind of Cold War, one that pits competing economic systems in a battle for dominance? Can free market countries compete with state capitalist powerhouses over relations with countries that have elements of both systems-like India, Brazil, and Mexico? Does state capitalism have staying power? This guide to the next big global economic trend includes useful insights for investors, business leaders, policymakers, and anyone who wants to understand important emerging changes in international politics and the global economy.

The Licit Life of Capitalism

Author : Hannah Appel
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 1478004576
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis The Licit Life of Capitalism by : Hannah Appel

Download or read book The Licit Life of Capitalism written by Hannah Appel and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-13 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Licit Life of Capitalism is both an account of a specific capitalist project—U.S. oil companies working off the shores of Equatorial Guinea—and a sweeping theorization of more general forms and processes that facilitate diverse capitalist projects around the world. Hannah Appel draws on extensive fieldwork with managers and rig workers, lawyers and bureaucrats, the expat wives of American oil executives and the Equatoguinean women who work in their homes, to turn conventional critiques of capitalism on their head, arguing that market practices do not merely exacerbate inequality; they are made by it. People and places differentially valued by gender, race, and colonial histories are the terrain on which the rules of capitalist economy are built. Appel shows how the corporate form and the contract, offshore rigs and economic theory are the assemblages of liberalism and race, expertise and gender, technology and domesticity that enable the licit life of capitalism—practices that are legally sanctioned, widely replicated, and ordinary, at the same time as they are messy, contested, and, arguably, indefensible.

The Man Who Broke Capitalism

Author : David Gelles
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 198217644X
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (821 download)

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Book Synopsis The Man Who Broke Capitalism by : David Gelles

Download or read book The Man Who Broke Capitalism written by David Gelles and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-05-31 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller New York Times reporter and “Corner Office” columnist David Gelles reveals legendary GE CEO Jack Welch to be the root of all that’s wrong with capitalism today and offers advice on how we might right those wrongs. In 1981, Jack Welch took over General Electric and quickly rose to fame as the first celebrity CEO. He golfed with presidents, mingled with movie stars, and was idolized for growing GE into the most valuable company in the world. But Welch’s achievements didn’t stem from some greater intelligence or business prowess. Rather, they were the result of a sustained effort to push GE’s stock price ever higher, often at the expense of workers, consumers, and innovation. In this captivating, revelatory book, David Gelles argues that Welch single-handedly ushered in a new, cutthroat era of American capitalism that continues to this day. Gelles chronicles Welch’s campaign to vaporize hundreds of thousands of jobs in a bid to boost profits, eviscerating the country’s manufacturing base and destabilizing the middle class. Welch’s obsession with downsizing—he eliminated 10% of employees every year—fundamentally altered GE and inspired generations of imitators who have employed his strategies at other companies around the globe. In his day, Welch was corporate America’s leading proponent of mergers and acquisitions, using deals to gobble up competitors and giving rise to an economy that is more concentrated and less dynamic. And Welch pioneered the dark arts of “financialization,” transforming GE from an admired industrial manufacturer into what was effectively an unregulated bank. The finance business was hugely profitable in the short term and helped Welch keep GE’s stock price ticking up. But ultimately, financialization undermined GE and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies. Gelles shows how Welch’s celebrated emphasis on increasing shareholder value by any means necessary (layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, acquisitions, and buybacks, to name but a few tactics) became the norm in American business generally. He demonstrates how that approach has led to the greatest socioeconomic inequality since the Great Depression and harmed many of the very companies that have embraced it. And he shows how a generation of Welch acolytes radically transformed companies like Boeing, Home Depot, Kraft Heinz, and more. Finally, Gelles chronicles the change that is now afoot in corporate America, highlighting companies and leaders who have abandoned Welchism and are proving that it is still possible to excel in the business world without destroying livelihoods, gutting communities, and spurning regulation.