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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

#91

Post by rjurney »

scotty79 wrote: post #89
rjurney wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course not, they would never complain. Poor southerners don't do that. The one did talk about losing the farm though. Don't take his word for it though, look at some data: http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2008/05/04/average-incom...

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

#92

Post by j1o1h1n »

qq66 wrote: post #13

Amazing article -- I did not know that modern American "consumer culture" was deliberately created by Henry Ford.

The eight hour day, forty hour week was a key victory won by the persistent efforts of the trade union movement (and anarchists and socialists). Mr Ford seems to have been writing a clever justification for a pre-emptive capitulation. And it seems to have been a good piece of business for him. But it is Labour Day, not Henry Ford Day.

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

#94

Post by scotty79 »

rjurney wrote: post #91
scotty79 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course not, they would never complain. Poor southerners don't do that. The one did talk about losing the farm though. Don't take his word for it though, look at some data: http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2008/05/04/average-incom...

Ok, so income tripled from 15 to 45. How about purchasing power of that income? How much housing could you buy for that income back then an now? How many children could you raise back then and now for that income?

How does tripling even compare to increase in efficiency of industrial and agricultural production?

"Losing farm" is impossible now?

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

#95

Post by rjurney »

scotty79 wrote: post #94
rjurney wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not, they would never complain. Poor southerners don't do that. The one did talk about losing the farm though. Don't take his word for it though, look at some data: http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2008/05/04/average-incom...

Ok, so income tripled from 15 to 45. How about purchasing power of that income? How much housing could you buy for that income back then an now? How many children could you raise back then and now for that income? How does tripling even compare to increase in efficiency of industrial and agricultural production? "Losing farm" is impossible now?

Why don't you reply with some data to have an informed conversation, I'm not your query engine. Know how to google?

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

#96

Post by snth »

CamperBob wrote: post #78
jquery wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> silly oversimplification that has high correlation with modern republicans I tried to downvote your post because of this line, but I ended up mis-clicking and upvoting, so I might as well explain myself. I am not a Republican, I am an independent. This holier-and-smarter-than-thou attitude that seems to be mestastisizing needs to stop. Please argue your point with facts and reason, not with a "it sympathizes with v…

And of course we all know that Republicans are all about the blunt-force, black-and-white simple-minded thinking, as opposed to subtle, sophisticated, and nuance-loving Democrats. Repudiate the Tea Party, Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, et al., and we can talk.

And you've come along to illustrate his point!

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

#97

Post by openfly »

theBobMcCormick wrote: post #48
openfly wrote: post #9

Also, look at the business policies and employment benefits first introduced by the Guinness brewery when they were founded. If you want to see how to establish a universally unbeatable brand identity they have a how to guide for the ages.

Any recommended links for reading about that?

I read "The Search for God and Guinness", fun read even if you aren't religious ( I am not ):

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20861910/The-Search-for-God-and-Gu...

Just saw this, I haven't given it a listen yer, but I do intend to. Looks fun:

http://www.thedigitalhubelevate.com/memoirs_of_guinness

Also Guinness makes their employment archives available to descendents of past workers, which is pretty neat:

http://www.guinness-storehouse.com/en/somehistory.aspx

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

#98

Post by easp »

patrickk wrote: post #80
stretchwithme wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not to mention twice (or much more) as many people. Oscar Schindler saved over 1,100 Jews from death, and there's over 5,000 or 6,000 descendants of those survivors today. Can't remember the figures exactly, but it's a lot. And of course, with more people, markets are bigger, potential workforce is bigger, which leads to more wealth, which dovetails nicely with your point about wealth.

And for whatever reason, rising wealth seems to correlate with a decline in birthrates.

Killing people isn't the only thing that keeps a population in check.

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

#99

Post by jbooth »

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…

Huh? The entire war-production system was a socialist scheme. Who was buying all the goods?

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

#100

Post by anamax »

timwiseman wrote: post #63
anamax wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as what the majority of historians said, if it's them or you, and you're not saying something very very persuasive, I'll tend to believe them. Why? The last time I looked, nothing about history was subject to "nature". If all historians agreed that Hitler had 7 arms and flew, nothing bad would happen. If, on the other hand, engineers decided to act as if steel was less dense than air at 1 bar, things would g…

It depends on how that history is applied. If a false understanding of history is applied in foreign relations, then there are situations where unnecessary wars can be created. If a false understanding of history is applied to military strategy, wars can be needlessly lost. There was a reason that the government created and spent so much on the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984. If you control people's understanding…

That's true, but it doesn't generate feedback to bad historians.

For example, if a country gets into an unnecessary war because of bad history, the historians aren't penalized.

> There was a reason that the government created and spent so much on the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984. If you control people's understanding of history, you can have a big impact on what they do in the future.

Bingo, and it's not just govt that tries to influence history to influence the future.

Note that there's nothing in here that encourages accuracy.

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