Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

worklessparty.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 107 posts

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#21

Post by jbooth »

jswinghammer wrote: post #2

This sort of thinking drove government policy at the start of the Great Depression. President Hoover tried to maintain high wage rates seeing them as the cause of prosperity and not the effect of greater productivity. Henry Ford was probably the most influential person in this camp but most of American business at the time was on board with it as well. Murray Rothbard's "America's Great Depression" has probably the b…

"proto-New Deal policies?"

As I understand it, Hoover was preoccupied with maintaining a balanced federal budget through budget cuts and tax increases. That's the opposite of countercyclical spending, which along with some welfare state components made up the new deal. Maybe he was on board with the welfare state and the idea of people having high wages (who isn't?), but the government doesn't cut the majority of paychecks in the country, and those it does cut, he was, well, cutting. In regards to the Depression, he was pretty diametrically opposed to what the New Deal became.

You might have a book that says otherwise, but I've read several books that disagree with you. You've got a pretty high burden of proof to make that statement.

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#23

Post by axod »

openfly wrote: post #6

Uhm, Henry Ford was known for violently suppressing unions in his factories. He considered unions to be closely tied to "Jewish Zionist" ambitions. He was also a heavy monetary supporter of Adolf Hitler. In fact, he refused to give back awards he received from the Third Reicht, and was in fact buried with them. Oh, and he was illiterate. So word of advice... don't take advice from Henry Ford.

Many people disagree with the idea of Unions. That doesn't mean you should ignore everything they say just because you don't like one of their viewpoints.

People aren't "good" or "evil". People are complex. If you ignore someone just because you dislike some of their ideas, you'll ignore pretty much everyone.

Also it's incredibly unfair to judge someone without taking into account the political and social climate while they were alive.

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#24

Post by openfly »

hop wrote: post #16
openfly wrote: post #6

Uhm, Henry Ford was known for violently suppressing unions in his factories. He considered unions to be closely tied to "Jewish Zionist" ambitions. He was also a heavy monetary supporter of Adolf Hitler. In fact, he refused to give back awards he received from the Third Reicht, and was in fact buried with them. Oh, and he was illiterate. So word of advice... don't take advice from Henry Ford.

You should read his autobiography "My Life, and My Work" http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7213 Its fascinating. I think highly dyslexic is a better description than illiterate for Henry Ford, he was a genius. Pioneered material science, machining and forming metal cost effectively, made the assembly line, 161 patents, created enormous opportunity for hard working and smart people, brought cars to the masses. His politi…

Wow, that's a horrifically one sided and incorrect view. Only held btw in the US, and by people who are not familiar with the actual history. Ford, like GM and IBM invests considerable effort in hiding their roles in that war.

Ford however, was one of the few who "took sides". They didn't just support the Nazis for economic reasons ( which is pretty damned horrific ), they actually hindered allied production purposefully.

Also, he got lucky. He built one of the first car companies and he did a good job at first. End result is he ended up being one of the big 3. Every industry has em. He was in the right place at the right time. From then on he had a large enough enterprise that it could run itself, all he had to do was sit back and not get too involved. Which he couldn't do. He nearly bankrupted the company and embarked on a bunch of inglorious economic escapades resulting in him being kicked out of the Ford.

I mean... jesus, who the hell taught you people history? How can you possibly look up to this guy FOR ANYTHING. He was a bull headed arrogant deceitful bastard who tried very hard to quite literally destroy his own country and his people.

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#25

Post by _delirium »

hop wrote: post #16
openfly wrote: post #6

Uhm, Henry Ford was known for violently suppressing unions in his factories. He considered unions to be closely tied to "Jewish Zionist" ambitions. He was also a heavy monetary supporter of Adolf Hitler. In fact, he refused to give back awards he received from the Third Reicht, and was in fact buried with them. Oh, and he was illiterate. So word of advice... don't take advice from Henry Ford.

You should read his autobiography "My Life, and My Work" http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7213 Its fascinating. I think highly dyslexic is a better description than illiterate for Henry Ford, he was a genius. Pioneered material science, machining and forming metal cost effectively, made the assembly line, 161 patents, created enormous opportunity for hard working and smart people, brought cars to the masses. His politi…

I don't think his right-wing extremism can be explained away as a reaction to FDR or the impending war, since it goes back quite a bit earlier. He published The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem in 1920! It was actually the inspiration for parts of Mein Kampf (1923), which speaks approvingly of Ford and lifts some sections more or less directly from him. And, he met with and corresponded with Nazi representatives several times in the early-to-mid 1920s, a point at which the Nazis were a fringe extremist party not anywhere near government, so couldn't plausibly be said to be part of normal business ties with Germany. I think he just kind of hated Jews for some reason.

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#26

Post by kiba »

jbooth wrote: post #21
jswinghammer wrote: post #2

This sort of thinking drove government policy at the start of the Great Depression. President Hoover tried to maintain high wage rates seeing them as the cause of prosperity and not the effect of greater productivity. Henry Ford was probably the most influential person in this camp but most of American business at the time was on board with it as well. Murray Rothbard's "America's Great Depression" has probably the b…

"proto-New Deal policies?" As I understand it, Hoover was preoccupied with maintaining a balanced federal budget through budget cuts and tax increases. That's the opposite of countercyclical spending, which along with some welfare state components made up the new deal. Maybe he was on board with the welfare state and the idea of people having high wages (who isn't?), but the government doesn't cut the majority of pay…

So there are several books that said the same thing about Hoover, but does that mean it is more likely that these historians are more accurate than the historians who provided a renegade viewpoint?

I have read another book that said that the early new deals program and regulatory framework were essentially made by insider players, who wrote the rulebooks to fit their business operations. Suddenly, you would have a few entrepreneurs and businessmen, jailed because they do a few things differently.

For example, from my fallible memory, a businessman who sold tires has to compete with Goodyear, who have locations around the country. In order for his business to survive, he must sell his tries cheaper than Goodyears does. However, he got fined because Goodyear wrote the regulation rules for the tire industry.

Which one is more likely in your opinion? The image of government programs being an entirely benevolent operation put forward by FDR, or political machines benefiting some people more than others, sometime at the expenses of one another?

If I got a job with the work progress administration, I might be inclined to vote for FDR because he gave me a job, not whether or not if the work progress administration benefit the economy.

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#27

Post by ugh »

mikecane wrote: post #17
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He ran a "company town" - had stores, sold them lumber to build houses etc. Most of the money came right back to him.

Was he the first to do that? I read a book about Frick & Carnegie and was shocked to learn Frick had company housing and stores for the workers of Carnegie's steel empire. I wonder where this idea came from? Not even wikipedia has its origins: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store EDIT: I should have clicked more. Pullman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town

Company housing was very, very common in Europe when the Industrial Revolution really got started.

Many German towns which got a train connection early on have these typical big red brick houses were the workers lived, probably the most visible reminder of that practice.

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#28

Post by axod »

openfly wrote: post #24
hop wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should read his autobiography "My Life, and My Work" http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7213 Its fascinating. I think highly dyslexic is a better description than illiterate for Henry Ford, he was a genius. Pioneered material science, machining and forming metal cost effectively, made the assembly line, 161 patents, created enormous opportunity for hard working and smart people, brought cars to the masses. His politi…

Wow, that's a horrifically one sided and incorrect view. Only held btw in the US, and by people who are not familiar with the actual history. Ford, like GM and IBM invests considerable effort in hiding their roles in that war. Ford however, was one of the few who "took sides". They didn't just support the Nazis for economic reasons ( which is pretty damned horrific ), they actually hindered allied production purposef…

>> "How can you possibly look up to this guy FOR ANYTHING."

I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here.

EVERY Human life can teach us things. Good and bad. If you don't want to learn, then fine, ignore him and anyone else you disagree with their politics etc

You seem to be arguing "he was evil vs he was good" which is pretty irrelevant if he had some good ideas, which IMHO he did.

I think you'll find many many historical/famous people have seriously flawed personalities, did terrible things as well as good etc. We are only human after all...

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#29

Post by jbooth »

kiba wrote: post #26
jbooth wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"proto-New Deal policies?" As I understand it, Hoover was preoccupied with maintaining a balanced federal budget through budget cuts and tax increases. That's the opposite of countercyclical spending, which along with some welfare state components made up the new deal. Maybe he was on board with the welfare state and the idea of people having high wages (who isn't?), but the government doesn't cut the majority of pay…

So there are several books that said the same thing about Hoover, but does that mean it is more likely that these historians are more accurate than the historians who provided a renegade viewpoint? I have read another book that said that the early new deals program and regulatory framework were essentially made by insider players, who wrote the rulebooks to fit their business operations. Suddenly, you would have a fe…

> Renegade viewpoint?

Yeah, in absence of better proof provided, I'll stick with the opinion of the majority of historians.

The rest of your points haven't had anything to do with government finances or the attitudes of both presidents towards countercyclical spending vs balanced budgets. They seem like some blindly-applied-backwards-80-years modern republican simplifications about the nature of "government programs". Some dude got screwed by Goodyear at some point in history? Huh?

There's been a lot of scholarship on this topic. You've got to do better than that if you're going to make an overarching claim like in your original point.

To start with, here's a google search for "herbert hoover balanced budget": http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=herbert+hoover+bala...

Re: Henry Ford: Why I Favor Five Days' Work With Six Days' Pay

#30

Post by eru »

kiba wrote: post #18
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He ran a "company town" - had stores, sold them lumber to build houses etc. Most of the money came right back to him.

For some reason(Correct me if I am wrong), the company town business model seem to have completely disappear. This, to me, suggest the uncompetitiveness of company towns.

Almost completely. I don't know if Disney counts.
Post reply on HN