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I voted that he did the right thing because it was his company and if he felt like paying his employees more, then good for him. But it is funny how he's being painted as some saint of the working man, when he was a pretty serious miser and not only did he reluctantly give more wages, he demanded to know that the employees were spending according to his worldview. In short, Ford was a pretty straight up tyrant.
Except that . . . It's not force if you are allowed to quit and go to work for General Motors.
Just like today, where liars are allowed to go to work for the U.S. Government.
Actually, it is a good one. It's grounded firmly in the most ubiquitous ethic on the planet, the ethic of reciprocity.
But it ignores the governing law, which is the law of economics. You can't change that law. You can't amend it. You can't repeal it. And you must live by it. You have no choice.
Except that . . . It's not force if you are allowed to quit and go to work for General Motors.
Totally agree. I said Ford was right to run his company any way he liked. I just said the truth about Ford is that he wasn't some friend of the working man, he was a garden variety industrialist robber baron who, common to the time, treated his employee likes human garbage. But I am a firm believer in private business running itself any way they like, and employees are not forced to work for mean bosses like Ford...they chose to.
But his sanctification as result of this week's foray into class warfare and income inequality is retarded. The guy was a jerk who would have paid his employees pennies if he could have gotten away with it. In fact, the high turnover rate when he paid them lower than everyone else is an excellent historical proof of my "vote with your feet, and don't tell me people won't if they get treated badly enough" theory. He had a horrible turnover rate, it cost him more than good wages, and he was forced by the individual actions of many "generations" of workers to reevaluate his miserly ways.
Ford had no socialist intentions. If anything he was more of an imperialist - believing he himself to be the emperor. In order to receive that wage, not only did you have to work for Ford, but also live the way he thought you should. In fact, he had people come to inspect your home to see if it was clean and organized to his standards, that you were not a drinker, etc...
$5 was an economic boon and it was genius, but it came at a cost.
Don't try to burst the lefties socialist bubble.
I guess that people who work at Boeing should earn enough to buy a jet, right?
Totally agree. I said Ford was right to run his company any way he liked. I just said the truth about Ford is that he wasn't some friend of the working man, he was a garden variety industrialist robber baron who, common to the time, treated his employee likes human garbage. But I am a firm believer in private business running itself any way they like, and employees are not forced to work for mean bosses like Ford...they chose to.
But his sanctification as result of this week's foray into class warfare and income inequality is retarded. The guy was a jerk who would have paid his employees pennies if he could have gotten away with it. In fact, the high turnover rate when he paid them lower than everyone else is an excellent historical proof of my "vote with your feet, and don't tell me people won't if they get treated badly enough" theory. He had a horrible turnover rate, it cost him more than good wages, and he was forced by the individual actions of many "generations" of workers to reevaluate his miserly ways.
I'm no "friend of the working man", either, as I haven't a clue as to what that would entail.
"Robber barons" depend on no choice.
He worked harder than his employees worked. (Treated himself like "human garbage")
What Henry Ford really hated was being at the mercy of stupid and greedy people running his life.
Henry Ford paid his employed $5 a day wages so they would STOP QUITTING ON HIM..
The cost to train his employees cost 2x as much as much as retaining them.
And to earn that $5 a day wage one needed to work there for 6 months, so by time he paid them higher wages, he had already saved more in costs then what he paid them.
It wasnt until DECADES later the bs about them buying cars was invented. If he really wanted them to buy cars, he would have offered them an employee savings account to do so..
Furthermore, it was an advisor that talked him into it, and it took nearly 6 months to do so.. Henry Ford was so anti employees that his wife suggested she'd divorce him if he tried to break up the unions as he threatened to. He viewed them as greedy pigs out to get his money, and this was after he increased their wages twice what they used to be and they demanded more.
Exactly.
Today, Henry Ford would just move the production to Mexico while getting huge government bailouts and would be a sitting member on the presidents job council.
In the 60s I worked as a contractor at the Ford Assembly plant in Oakville Ontario when they did the change over to the new model year...At that time most of the work on the line was done manually and the huge parking lot was full of mostly Fords....The plant was just beginning to install robot arms, and I thought what are they doing? Robots don't buy cars...
Assembly line work was dull and repetitious, but it paid well....
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