"Not as Proactive," General Motors receives substantial bad publicity post-WWII.

Not that GM collaborated with the Nazi government which is probably overstated and will evoke sympathy and defenders of GM.

But rather the criticism that GM executives weren't on the ball as much as they should have been. And incompetence is in some way the more damaging criticism.

And perhaps our POD is earlier use of the word "proactive"?

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4977.html

" . . . the longer answer is nuanced and infinitely more complicated. . . "
Sounds like it would make for some good, long news coverage, when newspapers were still the main show in town.

So, what if GM received major bad publicity in '46, '47, and '48?
 

Japhy

Banned
Well of the other two get on this you've just crippled the combine of auto and fuel companies that dismantled the trolley system in the US.
 
Not that GM collaborated with the Nazi government which is probably overstated and will evoke sympathy and defenders of GM.

But rather the criticism that GM executives weren't on the ball as much as they should have been. And incompetence is in some way the more damaging criticism.

And perhaps our POD is earlier use of the word "proactive"?

Sounds like it would make for some good, long news coverage, when newspapers were still the main show in town.

So, what if GM received major bad publicity in '46, '47, and '48?

According to the article GM invested in Opel 2 years before Hitler came to power. They can (and probably do) argue they invested when there was a legitimate government in Germany and underestimated Hitler's chances of gaining power and when he took over it was difficult if not impossible to not get out.
 
Well of the other two get on this you've just crippled the combine of auto and fuel companies that dismantled the trolley system in the US.

Streetcar companies were losing money in almost all cities after WWI, and the Depression made things worse. WWII was a slight reprieve due to tire and fuel rationing. As soon as that was lifted, streetcar ridership plummeted again.

Blame Ford and the Model T, not GM

And GM made buses for mass transit.
 

Japhy

Banned
Streetcar companies were losing money in almost all cities after WWI, and the Depression made things worse. WWII was a slight reprieve due to tire and fuel rationing. As soon as that was lifted, streetcar ridership plummeted again.

Blame Ford and the Model T, not GM

And GM made buses for mass transit.

That doesn't change the fact that there was a coordinated effort after WWII to dismantle the Streetcar system by the Car and Gas companies. Yes they were probably doomed anyway, you've still broken the cartel if everyone is turning on GM, it will happen differently.


EDIT: In fact, GM was the leader of it so yes, blame them
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
 
According to the article GM invested in Opel 2 years before Hitler came to power. They can (and probably do) argue they invested when there was a legitimate government in Germany and underestimated Hitler's chances of gaining power and when he took over it was difficult if not impossible to not get out.
Yes, GM purchased Opel in 1931. But the article about the guy's book also says GM executives made serious errors before and after the war.

If we get away from the whole concept of finding a smoking gun, that's actually a good thing. You trying to find a definite example of top executives making a conscious decision to trade money for human lives or selling their country down the river, it's actually paralyzingly because it's never quite clear cut enough. If instead you go with the dominant decision theory of the time of good percentage baseball and sometimes you better take a chance in the 5th inning or you won't have a chance in the 9th, that will actually get people questioning corporate executives much more confidently.

And if you combine the powerful union movement in the 1940s with the confidence of individual consumers today, that could be very powerful stuff indeed.
 
Yes, GM purchased Opel in 1931. But the article about the guy's book also says GM executives made serious errors before and after the war.

If we get away from the whole concept of finding a smoking gun, that's actually a good thing. You trying to find a definite example of top executives making a conscious decision to trade money for human lives or selling their country down the river, it's actually paralyzingly because it's never quite clear cut enough. If instead you go with the dominant decision theory of the time of good percentage baseball and sometimes you better take a chance in the 5th inning or you won't have a chance in the 9th, that will actually get people questioning corporate executives much more confidently.

And if you combine the powerful union movement in the 1940s with the confidence of individual consumers today, that could be very powerful stuff indeed.

How much of this is 20/20 hindsight? It wasn't as easy as it looks now, I am sure. Are you sure you wouldn't have made similar decisions at the time without knowing what would happen in the future? They didn't have crystal balls and could only guess at what the future would hold.
 
Well of the other two get on this you've just crippled the combine of auto and fuel companies that dismantled the trolley system in the US.
Que? Since when did the SEC, US Senate and US Congress of the 74th United States Congress become classified auto and fuel companies? As the article you linked to points out many of the companies had been in financial trouble for years, the law of unintended consequences with PUHCA, and that the supposed conspirators only ever controlled ten per cent of the national network.
 
How much of this is 20/20 hindsight? It wasn't as easy as it looks now, I am sure. Are you sure you wouldn't have made similar decisions at the time without knowing what would happen in the future? They didn't have crystal balls and could only guess at what the future would hold.
You've got me! No, I'm not at all sure I wouldn't have made similar decisions at the time.

But in a way, that's kind of my evolving POD. That this is higher criticism, of the "missed opportunity" variety, or if the word "proactive" had been coined earlier and included in quotes for a while, or if a critic had knowledgeably used a single brief analogy about being a skillful baseball manager.
 
I think this is the kind of decision that is hard to avoid. From what they knew at the time it looked like a good deal, they would get their foot in the door to the European market and using skilled German labor. There is nothing wrong with that. The Nazi Party was rising but there was no telling how long that would last, political movements fell short of gaining power in history more often than not. The Nazis could well have done so as well, most easily by Hitler dying.
 
Of course, GM wasn't the only company. Standard Oil of New Jersey continued dealing with the Nazis until I think (?)1941. Some of this might just be normal business practices which drifted too long. But some of it might be of the "Oh, Shit" variety.

Let's say in the wake of greater bad publicity, the UAW (United Auto Workers) pushes for three seats on the GM board of directors.

GM is highly resistant to this, and the union realizes this isn't going to be a majority anyway. So, they adroitly shift to asking for greater openness in GM's accounting, somewhat anticipating the modern emphasis on transparency. Plus, this directly helps the UAW in wage negotiations.
 
Of course, GM wasn't the only company. Standard Oil of New Jersey continued dealing with the Nazis until I think (?)1941. Some of this might just be normal business practices which drifted too long. But some of it might be of the "Oh, Shit" variety.

Let's say in the wake of greater bad publicity, the UAW (United Auto Workers) pushes for three seats on the GM board of directors.

GM is highly resistant to this, and the union realizes this isn't going to be a majority anyway. So, they adroitly shift to asking for greater openness in GM's accounting, somewhat anticipating the modern emphasis on transparency. Plus, this directly helps the UAW in wage negotiations.

It is hard to see how people could get that warmed up over something that looks to me (and probably most) as a mistake which are inevitable in real life. If you could prove that knowingly traded lives or sold out the country for money that would be different. IF you could prove THAT GM would go belly up and be broken up.
 
Really? No love for Kaiser? Hmmmm...
Kaiser-Frazer, later Kaiser Motors, is an interesting company but they were just too small and under-resourced to survive as a major automaker post-war. The purchase of Willys-Overland for the Jeep and truck side of thugs was very adroit but at best, and it would still be difficult to achieve, even without the large disagreements over company strategy, I could see them as a small-scale car producer of expensive high-end vehicles. George W. Mason had the right idea of bringing together the smaller manufacturers to form American Motors to try and compete with, and survive against, the Big Three. That's why I've been playing around with AMC to try and create a, eventually based out of Chicago, fourth major manufacturer.
 
It is hard to see how people could get that warmed up over something that looks to me (and probably most) as a mistake which are inevitable in real life. If you could prove that knowingly traded lives or sold out the country for money that would be different. IF you could prove THAT GM would go belly up and be broken up.
That would be someone else's POD.

My evolving POD is the soft sell, which is often much more effective.
 
There would be tension over the issue of whether the executives are culpable to some extent or whether it's only a series of tragic mistakes. And this tension might carry the story for quite a while.
 
And the idea that corporate executives are just regular guys. That's heady stuff.

The influence of big business in American politics might go down by a notch.

Maybe Eisenhower doesn't give the green light for the coup in Iran in support of British petroleum interests. Now, the Cold War was entrenched early, so perhaps only one third a chance of this change. But if so, we save ourselves a world of trouble in the Middle East.

In general, I kind of like threads in which the future happens sooner. In this case, globalization in which it's much more 'even steven' and building up developing economies. Of course, can work out even a damn site better than OTL if corporations are better behaved.

But as I understand, even exactly as it's played out, globalization has lifted a heck of a lot of people out of poverty. I could use some help on the journalism regarding this.
 
And the idea that corporate executives are just regular guys. That's heady stuff.

The influence of big business in American politics might go down by a notch.

Maybe Eisenhower doesn't give the green light for the coup in Iran in support of British petroleum interests. Now, the Cold War was entrenched early, so perhaps only one third a chance of this change. But if so, we save ourselves a world of trouble in the Middle East.

In general, I kind of like threads in which the future happens sooner. In this case, globalization in which it's much more 'even steven' and building up developing economies. Of course, can work out even a damn site better than OTL if corporations are better behaved.

But as I understand, even exactly as it's played out, globalization has lifted a heck of a lot of people out of poverty. I could use some help on the journalism regarding this.

People weren't as stupid as you make them out to be. People knew fully well that corporate executives were sometimes corrupt and often mistaken. This is not heady stuff. The conservatism of the 1950s is largely exaggerated, almost as much as the liberalism of the 1960s. The civil rights movement started then for one thing. The US wasn't Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany, there was considerable dissent. The thing to remember about that era is most people wanted to get back to normal. You had two world wars and the Great Depression in the previous two generations so a lot of people wanted things to calm down for a while. Arguably it was even necessary. Not everyone was of the McCarthyist Right in the 1950s anymore than everyone was a Hippy in the 1960s. They just got most of the press. For every McCarthyist or Hippy you had probably a hundred or more people merely getting on with life.
 
Top