In 1888, George Eastman marketed the Kodak camera with the memorable advertising promise: \u201cYou press the button, we do the rest.\u201d Photography, a complicated task requiring considerable technical knowledge, suddenly became accessible to ordinary consumers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eastman created a company that became an early practitioner of welfare capitalism. Eastman issued weekly paychecks and distributed bonuses and profit-sharing payments. In 1919, Eastman gave employees one-third of his personal holdings in Kodak stock, then worth $10 million. The firm later established retirement annuities, life insurance, and disability benefits. Eastman believed that the goodwill and loyalty of employees were important sources of Kodak\u2019s prosperity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After World War II, major American firms adopted the Kodak model of investing in their employees. In The End of Loyalty<\/em><\/a>, former Wall Street Journal<\/em> reporter Rick Wartzman describes the 1940s and 1950s as a working-class golden age in which firms such as General Motors, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, and Coca-Cola felt obligated to \u201clend a helping hand to workers\u201d and to \u201cshield them against the vicissitudes of life.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul Osterman\u2019s important new book, Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment<\/em>, describes how thoroughly that model has eroded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p> The Unravelling of The American Employment Compact – Public Discourse https:\/\/t.co\/0Vs231wbO3<\/a><\/p>— Allen Mendenhall (@allenmendenhall) September 9, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote>