Consumer Confidential: CEOs say they care about customers and workers. Propaganda experts are unimpressed
Kenneth Osgood studies propaganda. So he knew what he was seeing when business leaders announced this week that they don't just care about shareholders - they care about customers, workers and society.
"I raised my eyebrows really high when I saw this," Osgood, a history professor at Colorado School of Mines, told me.
He said it instantly reminded him of the we're-all-in-this-together messaging that emerged from corporate America during the Great Depression and New Deal, as a raft of regulations targeted companies' most egregious and self-serving practices.
"It seems pretty obvious that CEOs are trying to head off growing public
