When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)
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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)
#2Ford employees would be “demoralized by this sudden affluence,”
Love it. Workers are better off poor!
Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)
#3Ford employees would be “demoralized by this sudden affluence,” Love it. Workers are better off poor!
That statement made me laugh also
Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)
#4"Higher wages were necessary, Ford realized, to retain workers who could handle the pressure and the monotony of his assembly line."
This sentiment and empathy seems to be lost in today's business / cultural climate.
Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)
#5I 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 sound precisely because he's the only one raising wages. If his aim is to remain competitive and retain workers, that only works if he's the only one doing it -- competition, by definition, is relative.
Furthermore, the idea that people become richer because the number on the bottom of their check goes up, rather than the buying power of that number, is easily debunked by looking at the entire history of inflation. 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.
The one thing the article does get right is Ford's attempt to fight the stock market crash in 1929 by raising wages further backfiring. The reason is because his higher wages were not the actual reason why Detroit was richer -- the opposite was true: he was able to pay higher wages because Detroit was richer; or, more precisely, because he made the best cars in the world and capital flowed into his company and his city at high rates. But when the economy contracted, Detroit was going to feel the pinch, also.
Nothing in this article makes a case for raising a federally mandated minimum wage, and actually undermines the argument quite a bit.
Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)
#6Ford 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.
Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)
#7I 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…
Baffling really. One of the most obnoxiously well differentiated and profitable enterprises in history raising their minimum pay can’t possible be an analogue for the entire business world
Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)
#8> “The owner, the employees, and the buying public are all one and the same, and unless an industry can so manage itself as to keep wages high and prices low it destroys itself, for otherwise it limits the number of its customers. One’s own employees ought to be one’s own best customers.”
I note that in a world of globalising trade this isn't true - there are vast untapped reserves of both employees and customers out there. It then becomes possible to cannibalise the existing market through unsustainable practices. Until the global market as a whole is lifted up to the same level.
Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)
#9Ford 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.
Yeah every time I hear the phrase "late-stage capitalism" I roll my eyes.
Re: When Henry Ford Doubled His Minimum Wage (2014)
#10Ford 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.