Henry Ford and workers

"Henry Ford did more for the workers of the world than anyone."

What do you think?

--

A bit of background information:

Wikipedia

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was the founder of the Ford Motor Company and is credited with contributing to the creation of a middle class in American society. He was one of the first to apply assembly line manufacturing to the mass production of affordable automobiles. This achievement not only revolutionized industrial production in the United States and the rest of the world, but also had such tremendous influence over modern culture that many social theorists identify this phase of economic and social history as "Fordism."

Some of the things he is credited with:

- Reducing working hours drastically
- Increasing wages twenty-five-fold
- The popularization of Prussian ideas outside of Germany. Such as the Welfare State and government-run/nationalized services (like railways)
- Increasing population mobility. They could drive around to socialise, get to work, etc.

He wasn't without his critics, who claimed:

- Assembly-line workers were dehumanized, "trained gorillas"
- The working class was being replaced with an army of robots with “automatic and mechanical attitudes”
- The increase in Prussian-style bureacracy changed the traditional role of government in Anglo-Saxon societies, for the worse
- America's increased consumer culture was a bad thing, the more rural order was better

Here's a more verbose overview.

Reply 1

Nysh

Definitely not. Ford also was quite horrendous. It was he who promoted ant-semeticism in USA. He was the one who changed his factories for armery, and then said he was against the war in WW2... and sent a 'peace ship' out.

He needed to that "good" for his workers, or he wouldn't have had any left. The work he gave them was monotonous, and repetitive. He would have lost them otherwise. Oh and he fired them if they joined a Union.

Certainly was not a nice guy. He's worshiped because he drastically improved economic procedure.

Reply 2

Evil-Tuna

The man had his flaws, But the results he achieved were amazing. The thread is not whether or not he was a nice man but whether He improved standards of living for these working classes, he is proof that Trade unions are not needed.