"Henry Ford understood, perhaps apocryphally but correctly in principle, that his workers needed to earn enough to buy his cars.
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"Henry Ford understood, perhaps apocryphally but correctly in principle, that his workers needed to earn enough to buy his cars. The AI economy is eliminating the workers and expecting the cars to keep selling" -- Owen McGrann
@simon_brooke the 24th voyage of Ijon Tichy from Stanislaw Lem's Star Diaries comes to mind.
This man was a genius, he foresaw everything.
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"Henry Ford understood, perhaps apocryphally but correctly in principle, that his workers needed to earn enough to buy his cars. The AI economy is eliminating the workers and expecting the cars to keep selling" -- Owen McGrann
@simon_brooke The Shoe Event Horizon - Douglas Adams.
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"Henry Ford understood, perhaps apocryphally but correctly in principle, that his workers needed to earn enough to buy his cars. The AI economy is eliminating the workers and expecting the cars to keep selling" -- Owen McGrann
@simon_brooke great piece, though scary:
"This is one of the motivating factors in the Valley’s latching on to Trump: he and his cronies can be bought, and as importantly, they have no loyalty to democracy. The economic incentives for AI companies point toward the entities with the fewest democratic accountability mechanisms."
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"Henry Ford understood, perhaps apocryphally but correctly in principle, that his workers needed to earn enough to buy his cars. The AI economy is eliminating the workers and expecting the cars to keep selling" -- Owen McGrann
@simon_brooke I see 2 problems here.
The 1st is collective action: a single capitalist who takes this view will see his workers spend most of the extra money on stuff from other capitalists.
The second is that capitalists believe their own propaganda about GDP growth being driven by profit rather than prosperity, so most oppose measures such as minimum wage that might solve Problem 1.
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"Henry Ford understood, perhaps apocryphally but correctly in principle, that his workers needed to earn enough to buy his cars. The AI economy is eliminating the workers and expecting the cars to keep selling" -- Owen McGrann
@simon_brooke This is the same principle I'd like to see applied to stock market. A company laying off workers shouldn't be rewarded by markets, but punished for what it's causing.
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"Henry Ford understood, perhaps apocryphally but correctly in principle, that his workers needed to earn enough to buy his cars. The AI economy is eliminating the workers and expecting the cars to keep selling" -- Owen McGrann
@simon_brooke the myth is not just wrong, it is mathematically illiterate. Ford's own workers were a rounding error in the car market. No firm manufactures its own demand by overpaying its workforce, because it loses money on every unit it sells back to the people it just paid.
Ford was a tyrant in 1913 who burned over 50,000 hires just to hold 14,000 jobs. Turnover was at 370% and daily absenteeism 10%, because of his unbearable line and staff walked. The entire context for a January 1914 wage jump, that roughly doubled pay, was to collapse his quit rate almost overnight. (1987 paper: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w2101/w2101.pdf). And it depended on Ford's Sociological Department, which sent investigators into workers' homes to police their english language skills, drinking, their finances, their domestic arrangements.
The Ford myth hides the externality. It's a myth. The real man behind it pumped racist hate propaganda through his car dealer network in the twenties, had his portrait in Hitler's office, took a Nazi medal in 1938, and fought his own workers so hard that by 1941 they were marching on his plant with placards reading FORD = HITLER.
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@simon_brooke the myth is not just wrong, it is mathematically illiterate. Ford's own workers were a rounding error in the car market. No firm manufactures its own demand by overpaying its workforce, because it loses money on every unit it sells back to the people it just paid.
Ford was a tyrant in 1913 who burned over 50,000 hires just to hold 14,000 jobs. Turnover was at 370% and daily absenteeism 10%, because of his unbearable line and staff walked. The entire context for a January 1914 wage jump, that roughly doubled pay, was to collapse his quit rate almost overnight. (1987 paper: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w2101/w2101.pdf). And it depended on Ford's Sociological Department, which sent investigators into workers' homes to police their english language skills, drinking, their finances, their domestic arrangements.
The Ford myth hides the externality. It's a myth. The real man behind it pumped racist hate propaganda through his car dealer network in the twenties, had his portrait in Hitler's office, took a Nazi medal in 1938, and fought his own workers so hard that by 1941 they were marching on his plant with placards reading FORD = HITLER.
Simon
I think I agree with you ?but ford became one of the richest men in the world because people loved the model T
afaik, it was the 1st reliable car that people could afford ?
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Simon
I think I agree with you ?but ford became one of the richest men in the world because people loved the model T
afaik, it was the 1st reliable car that people could afford ?
@failedLyndonLaRouchite @simon_brooke another myth. The Model T was artificially made cheap, not better, not reliable. Electric was a third of the road in 1900, and Detroit Electric was the superior machine, instant start, no crank, no gearbox. Ford locked his own electric to battery tech he knew failed and in a rage killed the working version when someone proved it. He blocked the electric third from growing, while "clean/reliable" was branded as a woman's car. His wife always drove a Detroit Electric, never Ford. Look at how an assembly line built by immigrant butchers in the Chicago slaughterhouses, systematized by Philip Armour, was claimed by Ford as his invention. Trump does this. The promotion of Ford as anything but a grifter is baffling to me, as a historian, beyond his utility as an anti-American fascist "strong man" myth to attack Americans from inside.
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"Henry Ford understood, perhaps apocryphally but correctly in principle, that his workers needed to earn enough to buy his cars. The AI economy is eliminating the workers and expecting the cars to keep selling" -- Owen McGrann
@simon_brooke
Imperialism, plain and simple. Todays AI companies are just another entity that sells stolen labour. Its the slave labor camps of nazi germany but with much more water consumption. They had the same issue back then. They produced like crazy but nobody had money to buy anything, hyperinflation, soon nothing but bread sold.Dont let them sell you the same stuff with a new sticker.
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@failedLyndonLaRouchite @simon_brooke another myth. The Model T was artificially made cheap, not better, not reliable. Electric was a third of the road in 1900, and Detroit Electric was the superior machine, instant start, no crank, no gearbox. Ford locked his own electric to battery tech he knew failed and in a rage killed the working version when someone proved it. He blocked the electric third from growing, while "clean/reliable" was branded as a woman's car. His wife always drove a Detroit Electric, never Ford. Look at how an assembly line built by immigrant butchers in the Chicago slaughterhouses, systematized by Philip Armour, was claimed by Ford as his invention. Trump does this. The promotion of Ford as anything but a grifter is baffling to me, as a historian, beyond his utility as an anti-American fascist "strong man" myth to attack Americans from inside.
I'm sorry, this is just twaddle
Electric cars vanished caused they sucked, but that wasn't clear cause the ICE tech was so freaking primitive -
I'm sorry, this is just twaddle
Electric cars vanished caused they sucked, but that wasn't clear cause the ICE tech was so freaking primitive@failedLyndonLaRouchite @simon_brooke well, then explain Ford killing his own working electric. The Edison-Ford ran once lead-acid was swapped for the battery that failed. Ford found out and ended it in a rage. Not the market choosing, not the tech losing. The man with the biggest factory on earth had a functioning electric and shut it. And his own wife drove a Detroit Electric into the 1930s, never a Ford. If electric merely sucked, the workaround doesn't get killed and Clara drives the Model T.
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@failedLyndonLaRouchite @simon_brooke well, then explain Ford killing his own working electric. The Edison-Ford ran once lead-acid was swapped for the battery that failed. Ford found out and ended it in a rage. Not the market choosing, not the tech losing. The man with the biggest factory on earth had a functioning electric and shut it. And his own wife drove a Detroit Electric into the 1930s, never a Ford. If electric merely sucked, the workaround doesn't get killed and Clara drives the Model T.
I'm not gonna argue with you
far as I'm concerned you know nothing about this, you are like a climate denier, always bringing up some "fact"BLOCKED
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@failedLyndonLaRouchite @simon_brooke well, then explain Ford killing his own working electric. The Edison-Ford ran once lead-acid was swapped for the battery that failed. Ford found out and ended it in a rage. Not the market choosing, not the tech losing. The man with the biggest factory on earth had a functioning electric and shut it. And his own wife drove a Detroit Electric into the 1930s, never a Ford. If electric merely sucked, the workaround doesn't get killed and Clara drives the Model T.
@failedLyndonLaRouchite @simon_brooke Once dissent itself becomes evidence of bad faith, you've built a closed loop nothing can get into.
https://mas.to/@failedLyndonLaRouchite/116658016954161538 -
@simon_brooke the myth is not just wrong, it is mathematically illiterate. Ford's own workers were a rounding error in the car market. No firm manufactures its own demand by overpaying its workforce, because it loses money on every unit it sells back to the people it just paid.
Ford was a tyrant in 1913 who burned over 50,000 hires just to hold 14,000 jobs. Turnover was at 370% and daily absenteeism 10%, because of his unbearable line and staff walked. The entire context for a January 1914 wage jump, that roughly doubled pay, was to collapse his quit rate almost overnight. (1987 paper: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w2101/w2101.pdf). And it depended on Ford's Sociological Department, which sent investigators into workers' homes to police their english language skills, drinking, their finances, their domestic arrangements.
The Ford myth hides the externality. It's a myth. The real man behind it pumped racist hate propaganda through his car dealer network in the twenties, had his portrait in Hitler's office, took a Nazi medal in 1938, and fought his own workers so hard that by 1941 they were marching on his plant with placards reading FORD = HITLER.
@flyingpenguin The power of false stories - I had not the slightest idea Ford was so evil.
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@flyingpenguin The power of false stories - I had not the slightest idea Ford was so evil.
@NicelyManifest he was an horribly angry, racist grifter and yet somehow Americans were raised to believe he was their hero. Unlike Trump, he failed to seize office, but he tried and he certainly corrupted it. He passively tried to undermine the British in WWI by soaking up military contracts and failing to deliver:
https://www.flyingpenguin.com/was-woodrow-wilsons-administration-a-blueprint-for-nazi-germany/
"Mr. President, what else did Henry Ford get out of Wilson’s honest and patriotic administration? It was reported he got $14,000,000 for the construction of Eagle boats which were either useless or not constructed; and when that fact was brought home to Henry Ford he said he was going to return the money to Uncle Sam. I was anxious to have a front seat and see Henry do that, but he never has done it. […] The Ford Motor Co., according to the War Department, received from Wilson’s administration $249,000 for tools which were never delivered. I suppose Henry has them yet. He also has the money, unless he spent it on this election. The Ford Motor Co., for tractors: Number delivered, none. Amount paid, $1,299,000. Where are those tractors? They might be converted into golden chariots, for all I know. The Ford Motor Co., for spare parts: Number delivered, none. Amount paid, $5,517,000."
Note this is relevant to today since the "MAGA" reference to "America First" and going backwards to restore the War Department is all about the corruption and violence of the time: Woodrow Wilson's 1915 "America First" campaign, then restarting the KKK, which led to the lynchings, federal troops killing Americans (Elaine), and mass riots such as Red Summer.
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