Jack Welch Is Dead. Neoliberalism Lives On.
Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, who died this week, turned GE into a private equity company. He was celebrated as the “manager of the century” for ruthlessly exploiting workers and their communities and promoting an economic model that increasingly appears to be incompatible with continued human civilization.
Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch speaks during a ceremony for students at the Jack Welch Management Institute, June 11, 2016 in Washington, DC.Brooks Kraft / Getty
Jack Welch, rock star former CEO of General Electric and Fortune magazine “manager of the century,” has died. Taking the helm at GE just after the 1980 election, Welch was the preeminent corporate counterpart of Reagan’s neoliberal revolution. His two decades as CEO — the longest in GE’s history — signaled the durability of the order that he and Reagan had ushered in, regardless of which political party was in power.
His death, on the other hand, marks the crisis of that era. The confidence and optimism Jack Welch symbolized for the ruling class is today shattered, replaced by a hard-right Trumpism and a “night of the living dead” liberalism endlessly recycling Third Way talking points.
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