Question

After viewing this week’s documentary, The American Experience: Henry Ford.consider the effect industrialization on the American worker. How did the factory transform the workplace the workerand the relationship between the worker and the capitalist (he who owns the means of productionHow industrial outlook of industrial workers As you consider your responsebe sure to give evidence from the documentary. response should be at least 200 words long

Answer 1

The industrial revolution

Ford reduced the number of hours worked from 9 to 8, increased wages from $ 2.34 a day to $ 5 a day and lowered the price of cars from $ 810 to $ 310. And again he was talking about the biggest wage revolution in the capitalist world. An unskilled worker could buy a car in just a few months. It was a technological change that made everything easier after the production line was set in place in the autumn of 1913, the process became general.

The T model was now produced on a treadmill, literally, and it was a huge leap in industrialization. The idea came to him a long time ago, seeing how the slaughter is being done. And he finally decided to replace the stationary production with a more complex process, but also much faster. Previous tests have given Ford security. Instead of 12 and a half hours, the same number of workers could finish a “Thin Lizzy” (the nickname of Model T) in just an hour and a half. Before working in groups to one copy, now each specialized in a single operation. In total, a car was manufactured in 84 steps.

This revolution was born out of necessity, 14,000 employees were working on the production of the automobile, but at the same time, 53,000 employees were changing their jobs. After the industrial revolution when the changes were implemented this figure dropped to only 6500 employees being changed every year because of the dismissal of a skilled workforce as well as higher wages.

Ford regarded the salary as a fair profit for the work that the employee was putting in, however, his increase was still limited by certain legislative conditions. At the start of the 20th century, work was seen as the cornerstone of the world and the root of self-respect. Therefore, cynical dollars were received only by those who had a family or other relatives to maintain, to ensure good living conditions.

Ford’s vision becoming a reality

With the measures of industrial production from 1914 set in place, the factory was able to produce over 4000 automobiles a day. By 1920 Ford had over 200,000 people working for him which has brought him the title for the biggest company in the world for that year. The market share was 90% and the buying power was at a very strong point.

Ford had become a true king of the automobile industry. In 1915 he got involved in politics, traveling to Europe on a peacekeeping mission, wishing to mediate between the parties in the war in which the United States had not yet entered. The mission did not have great results, except for an increase in its popularity.

From time to time the newspapers mentioned a possible candidacy for the presidency. But in 1918, when he ran for election to the Senate in Michigan, he suffered a bitter defeat, perhaps because he considered the election campaign useless. Ford felt more like a reformer of society than a politician, as his autobiography puts it. Ford did not even dare to express his anti-Semitism, and he also wrote a book, “The International Jew.” The car king, who has always sought to avoid bank lending, considered the banking world a Jewish scam.

Ford’s rational conception of the industry has greatly contributed to transforming the US into a great economic power, but also into a country of well-being. The Italian Socialist Antonio Gramsci coined the term “Fordism”, associating it with the rationalization of society. The model referred to meant a prosperous, efficient economy, even with the price of limited individuality.

Liberals hailed the white revolution instead of the red revolution. But socialists viewed technical progress as another step in the transition to communism. Stalin was strongly impressed by Ford, believing that a combination of the Russian revolution and American efficiency was the core of Leninism. German socialists, for example, Erich Kuttner, believed that American society was suffocated by consumerism, but that the perfection of capitalism expressed by the maximum productivity achieved by Ford was necessary for the evolution towards communism.

Beyond the politicizing remarks, for Ford, there were only words of praise.