He'd probably love the more advanced technology that they're using that have enabled a phenomenally better flow of money and information - he will find that financial market transactions are much more convenient and accessible, he'd probably love computerized trading and real-time quotes, and he'd undoubtedly be very pleased to see multiple business news channels on cable television. I think he'd relish every moment he spent in the NYSE.
Of course that assumes that he had an interest in the innards of financial markets; many if not most CEOs are not the day-trading types that you see prowling the floor. Also, we shouldn't make any assumptions about his politics being in favor of high taxes and economic isolation from the rest of the world; after all, many of the businesspeople actively supporting Reaganomics were active in the 1950's, and there are many contemporary cases of businesspeople resenting the tax rates. These were also the same people that had presided over and advocated the largest and most rapid recession of government spending and its size, scope, and power over the economy of any time in the 20th century: post-WWII demobilization. In addition, globalization, free trade, and liberalization of capital flows were very popular in the 1940's and 50's, at least among the political and business leadership; where do you think
GATT came from, out of the blue? Trade barriers were being steadily reduced during this era. Also, tax rates on business may have been high but they weren't getting any higher - on taxation the political momentum of the 1950's favored the status quo over any big changes, and the status quo of high rates with many brackets was a legacy of the Great Depression and WWII. Indeed, the next big change to tax rates were to be the Kennedy Tax Cuts, which were formulated and passed by people who came from the 1950's political environment. If any changes were to be made they would have preferred a tax cut.
This makes a generalization - there were quite a few CEOs then that
were in favor of high taxes and against free trade, but that was far from being the consensus view of business leaders during that era; if anything the consensus leaned towards the opposite of that.
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