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

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

#81

Post by gaius »

stretchwithme wrote: post #79
kiba wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record, the great depression didn't end until after WW2. War productions does not make prosperous societies simply because the allocation of resource is redirected to military purpose, not to civilian needs.

I don't know when exactly it ended but I'm quite certain there was little time to continue experimenting with socialist schemes when one is under attack. Industry needed to be able to function in order to produce everything required to win. And, yes, war is NOT good for the economy or anything else, other than repelling invaders. When all your shit's blown up, you ain't got shit. I figure that without the wars of the…

Well, yes and no. The position the US found itself in after WW2 was that all its rivals (Britain, Germany, Russia, Japan) had been devastated, and all its factories were fully intact and geared up for mass production. Not such a big leap from tanks to construction machinery, jeeps to cars, bombers to airliners. The Marshall plan was about kickstarting export markets, not altruism.

So on the one hand, you are right, war is a destroyer of wealth. But on the other hand, the US benefitted enormously from it. The net effect was to concentrate wealth that would have existed in territories of its rivals to it.

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

#82

Post by binarymax »

palish wrote: post #31
openfly wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I would love to learn more. But you haven't provided any concrete stories, references, or even descriptions in your response. Just a lot of what seems to be gossip.

http://iamthewitness.com/books/Henry.Ford/The.International....

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

#83

Post by rjurney »

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…

You read a visionary interview about the fundamental labor reforms that made the pursuit of happiness a reality, from three years before the depression started, and your comment is to start the old saw debate about the causes of the great depression? And it's top comment?

Are we voting for goodness or troll points? I get confused.

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

#84

Post by scotty79 »

Ok. So we are almost 100 years from the last significant reduction of work burden on humanity.

How many times industrial technology has doubled its efficiency since then?

Why Americans still work as much as then (or even more)? Where the benefits of having better industrial technology went? Is your daily life that much better than life in 1926? Does cost of any advanced piece of equipment that you use now in your life that did not exist back then justifies all of your effort multiplied by our incredible technology that seems to be be missing?

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

#85

Post by ovi256 »

hugh3 wrote: post #34
ugh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And, of course, it's still very common in newly-industrialising countries like China.

It was very common in all communist countries, which pushed hard towards industrialization. They thus transformed rural farmers into suburban industrial workers.

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

#86

Post by yummyfajitas »

gridspy wrote: post #74
yummyfajitas wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only came back to him if the company stores wildly overcharged his employees. If an employee spent $100 in a store with a 10% markup, Ford still lost a net of $90. Do the math - paying your workers "enough to buy your product" is an utterly flawed business model. It might work incidentally (i.e., high wages might attract high productivity employees), but it doesn't work as stated.

That other 90% doesn't drop off the planet. It goes to a company that splits it into profit and expense. Both are spent by different people, but all the cash goes back into the economy. The profits might be spent on luxuries, the costs on materials. Once again it split up. Every time a small fraction goes to the government, or to Henry Ford. His point is that he wants all business in America to be vibrant, not just h…

The other 90% drops off Ford's balance sheet. The fact that it's spent elsewhere in the economy does not help Ford.

Don't repeat platitudes, build a model. I.e., make up plausible numbers and actually do the math. You'll see that without making wildly ridiculous assumptions, it's just a net loss for Ford.

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

#87

Post by rjurney »

scotty79 wrote: post #84

Ok. So we are almost 100 years from the last significant reduction of work burden on humanity. How many times industrial technology has doubled its efficiency since then? Why Americans still work as much as then (or even more)? Where the benefits of having better industrial technology went? Is your daily life that much better than life in 1926? Does cost of any advanced piece of equipment that you use now in your lif…

This is a smart comment. You parsed the article! :)

Aren't Americans much wealthier today than 84 years ago? Hasn't the work paid off materially? I play with data for fun all day and live comfortably. My grandfathers worked like dogs and were poor. Isn't this a common story?

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

#88

Post by sambeau »

I love the idea that Henry Ford created a culture that had time to use the products that he was creating, and to do it he started with his own employees.

"The people with a five day week will consume more goods than the people with a six day week"

"the people would not have the time to consume the goods produced. For instance, a workman would have little use for an automobile if he had to be in the shops from dawn until dusk"

Genius!

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

#89

Post by scotty79 »

rjurney wrote: post #87
scotty79 wrote: post #84

Ok. So we are almost 100 years from the last significant reduction of work burden on humanity. How many times industrial technology has doubled its efficiency since then? Why Americans still work as much as then (or even more)? Where the benefits of having better industrial technology went? Is your daily life that much better than life in 1926? Does cost of any advanced piece of equipment that you use now in your lif…

This is a smart comment. You parsed the article! :) Aren't Americans much wealthier today than 84 years ago? Hasn't the work paid off materially? I play with data for fun all day and live comfortably. My grandfathers worked like dogs and were poor. Isn't this a common story?

Did you grandfathers actually told you that they worked like dogs and were poor?

I think a lot of people don't share your story and don't play with data for fun all day. Instead they still put 40 hours/week plus unpaid overtime into a job they hate that makes them unpleasantly tired.

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

#90

Post by j1o1h1n »

binarymax wrote: post #82
palish wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to learn more. But you haven't provided any concrete stories, references, or even descriptions in your response. Just a lot of what seems to be gossip.

http://iamthewitness.com/books/Henry.Ford/The.International....

Down at the Club, further sage advice from Mr Ford: "When "Mr. Lee Jackson" is proposed for the club there would seem to be no reason, as far as reading goes, why anything unusual about Mr. Jackson should be surmised, until you know that Mr. Jackson is really Mr. Jacobs."
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