I'm not so sure. I think company executives in the boom years following WWII knew perfectly well that a time would come when the boom would be over, and those companies would have to start focusing more on labor costs and downsizing, reducing pay and benefits, etc. They just didn't see any need to tell the employees ahead of time that all that was coming at some point.

In other words, the company executives were never under any illusions that their "work all your career at our company and we'll take care of you" rhetoric was actually sustainable in the long term. Only employees had those illusions.

> It worked out just fine.

It sure worked out fine for Welch, yes. It didn't work out fine for a lot of his employees.

Edit: typo.