Arlette Gaubert
Arlette Gaubert | |
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| Born | 9 April 1879 Garés, Xevden |
| Died | 9 January 1970 (aged 90) Narona, Nerveiík-Iárus-Daláyk, Gylias |
| Occupation |
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| Known for | Founder of Gaulette |
| Net worth | ₤10 billion (c. 1926) |
| Political party | Rally of the Democratic Centre (1958–1969) |
Arlette Gaubert (Gylic transcription: Arlet Gober; 9 April 1879 – 9 January 1970) was an Alscian businesswoman and industrialist. She was the founder of Gaulette, Alscia's largest conglomerate.
Famed for her philanthropy and ethical beliefs, Arlette made Gaulette an exemplar of industrial paternalism, providing workers with a range of benefits, high wages, low working hours, and extensive co-determination. She was nicknamed the "first lady of Alscian capitalism" for her principles and extensive involvement in civic life.
Outside of business, Arlette was a philanthropist, art patron, and salonnière. She used her status as Alscia's most successful businesswoman to promote her vision of a humane economy, which largely accorded with the economic principles of Donatellism.
After Gaulette's dissolution in 1939, Arlette moved the focus of her career to public life. She served as a delegate to the General Council of the Free Territories, and was elected to the Senate in 1962, representing Arxaþ. She served one term, and died in 1970. Her life and work have made her an enduring symbol of charitable business, influential on the Social Partnership Program and an example for rich Gylians.
Early life
Arlette was born on 9 April 1879 in Garés. She had a younger sister, Patricia (1884–1944). Her parents owned a grocery store in Garés. The family was poor, and both daughters began working in the grocery store at a young age to help make ends meet.
She attended informal Gylian schools. She involved herself in the Gylian resistance, and was a volunteer for the National Unity Party.
Arlette showed industrious tendencies, and went into business in her twenties. Her childhood hardships, experience with the cooperative movement, and admiration of Lera Seraðu and Mary Grant shaped her guiding beliefs.
Her business career took off after the Cacerta-Xevden War and the constitution of Alscia. She became a successful investor and worked in various jobs. Now well-off, she nurtured ambitions to become an industrialist and use her fortune for others.
Gaulette
Arlette established her own company in 1914, naming it Gaulette after a portmanteau of her names.
An ardent believer in a humane economy, she acted on these beliefs as chief executive, which shaped a distinctive company culture. She embraced co-determination and industrial democracy, maintained good working conditions, and paid workers high wages and provided a range of benefits, including profit sharing, insurance, parks and recreation facilities, child care, and subsiding workers' education and their children's education.
At the same time, she engaged in aggressive business practices against rivals, using high wages and low prices to out-compete them, investing heavily in technology and research to increase production, and expanding through vertical integration and horizontal integration. She offered rivals generous terms for takeovers, or purchased companies that had gone bankrupt and turned them around within the Gaulette group.
Arlette's activities gained positive notice from the Alscian Development Company (SSA) and Donatella Rossetti government, which judged it an excellent private partner for its economic policies. Government support became key to Gaulette's success, bolstering Arlette's reputation as a humanitarian industrialist.
Gaulette expanded into a concern, incorporating subsidiary companies active throughout the Alscian economy. It hired famed artists to design its branding and advertising, and hired Adriana Górska to design its building in Etra.
By the 1920s, Gaulette had become the largest conglomerate in Alscia. It had monopolised the private sector, and collaborated closely with the government and SSA, forming the "iron triangle" at the heart of the Alscian economy. Arlette reached the height of her influence: she had an estimated net worth of ₤10 billion, was engaged in extensive philanthropy, and enjoyed public esteem as a representative of the "humane capitalism" engineered by Donatellism.
She guided the conglomerate to use its power for the benefit of Alscians: keeping prices low, reinvesting its profits in communities, and shouldering the costs of modernisation and development in cooperation with the government. Her enthusiasm for spending on welfare programs for workers and harnessing technology to deliver good working conditions made her stand out among Cacertian Empire industrialists, and represented the accelerationist tendencies produced by Donatellism.
Throughout her career, Arlette maintained good relations with Alscia's cooperative sector, and steered Gaulette away from direct competition. As a result, while Gaulette took over Alscia's private sector, that sector continually lost ground to the cooperative sector. Arlette's fascination with heavy industry drove Gaulette to focus instead on large-scale activities and production, where it could achieve economies of scale.
She was granted the title of Duchess by UOC in 1922. Historian Herta Schwamen writes that, between them, Arlette, Maria Caracciolo, and Donatella Rossetti "came as close as one could to embodying Alscia in their person". She was part of il palazzo, making her a foremost representative of The Establishment in Alscia.
Public image
Arlette's business career was defined by her faith in the need for the successful to be "virtuous" and help the disadvantaged. She wrote, "The more one climbs up the ladder of riches, the more their responsibility towards their fellow citizens increases." She sought "to socialise business relations … and get back to that close family brotherhood we had in the Liúşai League". Accordingly, while she was generous with wages and benefits to improve the lot of Gaulette workers, she was opposed to invading workers' privacy. "What workers do in their personal time is none of my business," she declared.
Her reputation for responsiveness to regulation and diligence was key to her good reputation. She eagerly fraternised with her employees, and created a private suggestion system, which she used especially to investigate and discipline executives and supervisors who abused workers.
Herta Schwamen characterised her as "intensely relaxed about her success and convinced that character was demonstrated through restraint", and it was this "unthreatened" quality that stood out in her interactions with workers.
Arlette had a distinctive public image, and enjoyed attention. She wore white clothes and jewellery in public, a colour choice that reminded her of her "spotless" reputation and the importance of not sullying it. Mainstays of her wardrobe included coats, fur clothing, gloves, and hats. She travelled by limousine, and owned a private aeroplane.
She was open to the media, writing editorials and giving many interviews. During one with Margherita Martini, she commented on trade unions, "Arbitrate, arbitrate, and arbitrate. Anyone who won't meet their workers halfway is an idiot who doesn't deserve to be in business."
In contrast to her elegant appearance, she led a modest lifestyle in private. She generally avoided smoking and drinking, and enjoyed playing tennis and golf. She was an avid reader and built up an extensive book collection.
Arlette's political sympathies leaned towards liberalism, and she was a supporter of the Donatella Rossetti government. She was sympathetic towards Mary Grant's utopian socialism, and advocated class collaboration rather than conflict, to be achieved by redistributionist policies and strengthening organised labour.
She believed in self-improvement and self-discipline, but was opposed to laissez-faire. Reflecting her childhood experiences, she declared that "collective action is the best route to bettering oneself", and defined liberalism as "the removal of all barriers to the free development of the person", including bigotry, dictatorship, poverty, and inequality.
Arlette was strongly critical of "the worship of power, wealth, and success". She began her philanthropic work soon after the establishment of Gaulette, and once it had monopolised Alscia's private sector, she devoted her efforts to donating her wealth for the benefit of others. Her donations included support of public libraries, schools, universities, parks, sports clubs, recreational facilities, and preservation of historical heritage. She was also a supporter of Alscian arts, becoming an art patron and a salonnière with ties to influential cultural figures like Pierre Brissaud, Tamara Łempicka, Adriana Górska, and Adela Stein.
Free Territories
Arlette had already given away much of her wealth when Alscia voted to join the Free Territories in 1939. Gaulette was dissolved and its member companies cooperativised. She donated her book collection to public libraries as well, and later wrote of the period: "I intend to continue working for the public, and now I do so with only my good name."
She took part in communal assemblies, and became a long-serving delegate to the General Council. She largely aligned with the liberal and "constructive" conservative factions, and her continued advocacy of an "enlightened", philanthropic industrial paternalism served as an important precedent for aristerokratia.
In the General Council, she became famous for her humorous acceptance of her new status, and antagonistic relationship with left statists–authoritarians. She would position herself close to other delegates who advocated violence towards the rich and privileged, and asked them to address her directly. She commented she did not intend to send a message: "I am the class enemy. I am aware of that. All I ask is for people to have the courage of their beliefs and stab me in the front, not the back, if they desire to."
Despite her skeptical stance, she formed a good relationship with the anarchists in the General Council, who regarded her as an adversary rather than an enemy. Her inclusion in the honoured citizens list served to highlight the anarchists' preference for quiet capitulation in contrast to authoritarians' wish for more extensive purges and retribution.
Gylias
Arlette continued her political career during the transition from the Free Territories to Gylias. She was placed on the Rally of the Democratic Centre's list for the 1958 federal election, and ultimately won a seat in the Popular Assembly after a revision of the electoral threshold awarded it seats.
In her last years, she increasingly embraced the role of an elder stateswoman, and her contributions remained focused on support for virtuous entrepreneurship, aristerokratia, and the francité movement. She was a candidate in the 1961 presidential election, supported by the Centre Group, and finished fifth in the first count.
She was elected to the Senate for Arxaþ in 1962. She quipped that she appreciated the "lovely retirement" assured by the Darnan Cyras government, and enjoyed the company of fellow Alscian figures like Donatella, Margot Fontaine, and Dæse Şyna.
Death
Arlette's health declined in later years, enough for her to step down at the end of her Senate term. She died on 9 January 1970, aged 90.
Legacy
Arlette remains one of Gylias' celebrated business figures, and left an extensive legacy through her philanthropic activities and the influence of Gaulette's culture and identity, which inspired later successful companies like Dreamwave Productions and Miyashita Industries.
The National Observer wrote in her obituary that "The altruism and public-mindedness of Arlette Gaubert shone brightly in contrast to the antisocial grasping of the business world of her time." Her reputation made her a symbol of humanitarianism in business. Aristerokratia and the creation of the Social Partnership Program drew heavily on her example, with Prime Minister Mathilde Vieira declaring of the latter, "If we are to have rich Gylians, let they be only Susan Shelleys and Mary Grants and Arlette Gauberts."
Private life
Arlette identified as heterosexual and was married. The couple had three children. She was a strong supporter of LGBT rights, and a donor to the GSRAA.
She mainly practised Gaulish polytheism combined with Concordianism.