The subject matter of the publications ranged from narrow employment issues (“How Big Are General Electric Profits – Are They Too Big?” “Why the company can expect union officials to ‘demand’ a strike from them”) to broader economic concerns (“Let’s Learn from Britain”--which concerned the failures of socialism and a government-run medical profession--and “What is Communism? What is Capitalism? What is the Difference to You?”). The folly of many government programs and the negative consequences of burdensome taxation were frequent topics. The book clubs of employees and their spouses spent thirteen weeks discussing Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt or How You Really Earn Your Living by Lewis Haney and other conservative offerings.
In time, Lemuel Boulware and GE CEO Ralph Cordiner mounted a national grass roots campaign, recruiting major corporate allies, creating schools where GE employees and others could learn the fundamental political skills to win elections, developing shareholder lists for political mailings, and turning GE workers into “communicators” and “mass communicators” (Boulware’s words) who could spread the message of free persons and free markets to a decisive number of local voters. In the course of this Ronald Reagan was taken out of the plants and put on what he called “the mashed potato circuit” of civic forums largely in the south and smaller states, often towns where GE dominated the economy, where he would be most effective. In due course, the “great communicator” was born. In today’s parlance, most of these states turned from blue to red......"