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When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)

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Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)

#11

Post by louisswiss »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #5

I can't believe this actually needs to be said, but a single employer raising its wages is not the same thing as a government raising a legally mandated minimum wage. It's so much not the same thing, that the very fact the article tries to conflate them by comparing Ford's decision with the proposal from the Obama administration makes me doubt the voracity of the entire piece. For one thing, Ford's logic is quite sou…

> I'm easily making more money, in nominal dollars, than an average CEO in 1919, but I'm not running wild in Saint-Tropez every summer either.

Not arguing with your general point. But on this count, I think you're vastly better off than the average CEO in 1919. You have luxury they couldn't have even imagined.

- quality of medical care - entertainment - air travel - cars - food regardless of season - etc

Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)

#12

Post by roenxi »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #5

I can't believe this actually needs to be said, but a single employer raising its wages is not the same thing as a government raising a legally mandated minimum wage. It's so much not the same thing, that the very fact the article tries to conflate them by comparing Ford's decision with the proposal from the Obama administration makes me doubt the voracity of the entire piece. For one thing, Ford's logic is quite sou…

The frame of the article is that Ford, a dashing socialist in disguise, woke up and decided one day that all would be well and good in the world if workers were paid $5/hr.

That isn't going to be what happened. He would have thought about it carefully and moved deliberately because he thought it would benefit his business.

I'll draw an analogue with, say, Google and their 20% time back in the day. It might be quirky and costly to the company (losing 20% of your workers productivity!!) - but it isn't happening because the bosses are just lovely people. It happens because the boss thinks that there might be a payoff. It is circumstance-specific whether such bold plays work out.

I'll reiterate what some others are saying; capitalism is all about allowing selfish motivations to power great outcomes. The moral people tend to be the wizened monks sitting on mountains rather than the egos that power the machinery of society. Something external to the Ford company would have driven the rise in wages, and that something was likely to be competition or economic opportunity.

Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)

#13

Post by bmmayer1 »

louisswiss wrote: post #11
bmmayer1 wrote: post #5

I can't believe this actually needs to be said, but a single employer raising its wages is not the same thing as a government raising a legally mandated minimum wage. It's so much not the same thing, that the very fact the article tries to conflate them by comparing Ford's decision with the proposal from the Obama administration makes me doubt the voracity of the entire piece. For one thing, Ford's logic is quite sou…

> I'm easily making more money, in nominal dollars, than an average CEO in 1919, but I'm not running wild in Saint-Tropez every summer either. Not arguing with your general point. But on this count, I think you're vastly better off than the average CEO in 1919. You have luxury they couldn't have even imagined. - quality of medical care - entertainment - air travel - cars - food regardless of season - etc

That's a good point, and also speaks to the futility of trying to define wealth in dollar terms, even when adjusting for inflation. An inflation-adjusted dollar in 2019 buys more than an inflation-adjusted dollar in 2000, even (iPhones alone!)

Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)

#14

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

ajuc wrote: post #10
lowken10 wrote: post #6

Ford doubling his minimum wage is simply an example of capitalism (not government) raising wages. This is why capitalism is the greatest economic system (by a mile) ever devised.

And it's so common we have 1 example from a century ago and we're still talking about it.

What are you arguing? That wages haven't risen since?

Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)

#15

Post by folli »

louisswiss wrote: post #11
bmmayer1 wrote: post #5

I can't believe this actually needs to be said, but a single employer raising its wages is not the same thing as a government raising a legally mandated minimum wage. It's so much not the same thing, that the very fact the article tries to conflate them by comparing Ford's decision with the proposal from the Obama administration makes me doubt the voracity of the entire piece. For one thing, Ford's logic is quite sou…

> I'm easily making more money, in nominal dollars, than an average CEO in 1919, but I'm not running wild in Saint-Tropez every summer either. Not arguing with your general point. But on this count, I think you're vastly better off than the average CEO in 1919. You have luxury they couldn't have even imagined. - quality of medical care - entertainment - air travel - cars - food regardless of season - etc

This is actually a really interesting point. In some ways even moderatly poor people in a Western country are better of than the Caesars of Ancient Rome, especially the availability of medical care is something I would never want to trade. In other ways even the richest and most powerful people today will never be able to have comparable power, in terms of political and cultural influence. It would be an interesting excercise to come up with a definition of wealth that somehow accounts for this.

Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)

#16

Post by srfilipek »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #5

I can't believe this actually needs to be said, but a single employer raising its wages is not the same thing as a government raising a legally mandated minimum wage. It's so much not the same thing, that the very fact the article tries to conflate them by comparing Ford's decision with the proposal from the Obama administration makes me doubt the voracity of the entire piece. For one thing, Ford's logic is quite sou…

> For one thing, Ford's logic is quite sound precisely because he's the only one raising wages.

Except that the rest of the industry followed suit as well, which, by your logic, should have nullified any advantage.

But it didn't.

There are other points to the article that naysayers completely miss (because it disagrees with their set-in-stone world view, it seems). Well paid workers, even if common across the entire industry, have multiple benefits. They are more motivated, more productive, and at a larger economic scale they have more buying power to actually purchase things being produced.

Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)

#17

Post by yspeak »

Interesting article but I suspect an intentional misleading use of term minimum wage to argue for social policy. By definition a minimum wage is enforced by law on companies that don't want to or can't pay it. Ford decided for competitive or if you like humanitarian reasons to increase it's wages. But the problem with a legally enforced minimum wage on the economy as a whole is it always results in less jobs with the lost jobs being entry level jobs. Take those jobs away and you've taken the first rung or two off the ladder to economic success and enlarge the pool of the permanent poor. You've set up a barrier to entry for new companies, hindered the growth of young fledgling companies, and taken away the ability of many low or no skilled workers to learn new skills and climb up the ladder. In exchange you fatten the wallet of a now more limited worker pool. Minimum wage results in high unemployment among low or no skilled workers.

Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)

#18

Post by naveen99 »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #5

I can't believe this actually needs to be said, but a single employer raising its wages is not the same thing as a government raising a legally mandated minimum wage. It's so much not the same thing, that the very fact the article tries to conflate them by comparing Ford's decision with the proposal from the Obama administration makes me doubt the voracity of the entire piece. For one thing, Ford's logic is quite sou…

> voracity —> veracity

Probably a typo, but in case it wasn’t : https://grammarist.com/usage/veracity-voracity/

Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)

#19

Post by ajuc »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #14
ajuc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's so common we have 1 example from a century ago and we're still talking about it.

What are you arguing? That wages haven't risen since?

That doubling of salaries in 1 year because of some business owner's good will is hardly a representative example of how capitalism works.

Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)

#20

Post by slg »

You aren’t getting the complete picture if you discuss the $5 workday without also mentioning Ford’s Sociological Department. They were basically a group of investigators that looked into numerous aspects of Ford’s employees personal lives. If your kid didn’t go to school, if you kitchen wasn’t clean enough, if you spent too much time at the bar, if you weren’t saving enough, you wouldn’t qualify for $5 a day. That new salary wasn’t purely a capitalist endeavor, it was a totalitarian endeavor that gave Ford the ability to control the lives of his employees.
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