The Real Model for Capitalism

[rpannier]

When I keep hearing from corporations that they have to cut workers, cut their health care and cut their salaries to stay in business, I often think back to the man who had the vision for real capitalism --Henry Ford. Henry Ford had the highest paid workers in the auto industry. When asked he said, "So they have money to buy my cars." That statement always made sense to me and it still does. Paying people low wages to keep the bottom line low does nothing, because it decreases the number of people who can buy your prroducts. Moving your plants overseas does nothing because you leave an heavily unemployed populace who can't afford food, much less your product no matter how cheap it is. The creatures that run corporations in the US, need to re-think their strategies and listen to the immortal words of Henry Ford and PAY PEOPLE A LIVEABLE WAGE. I think it makes sense -- Does anyone else?

[LostInAnomie]

1. We are on the way to a revolution

The last two capitalists on earth will kill each other fighting over possession of the rope that will hang them. - Karl Marx

[burrowowl]

2. Amen! eom

[ArwenJade]

3. Good quote

I love Marx.

[Dirk39]

5. Did he really write this?

Do you have the source?

"Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form."
Karl Marx


"All I know is I'm not a Marxist."
Karl Marx

Marx sounds funny in english,
Dirk

[Nikia]

4. It is like the tragedy of the Commons

The companies are counting on other companies to keep people employed in higher wage jobs as they move jobs oversees. Unfortunately, other companies trying to be competitive do the same thing and eventually there will be few consumers able to afford consumer goods.

[I AM SPARTACUS]

6. Ford was in it for the long-haul, not get-rich-overnight...

...and he owned his own company. Today's high-priced execs are just hired-hands, and corp-boards give them leave to rob the till.

Another point - Ford was reinventing manufacturing with the assembly line. Today's execs are reinventing the same wheels, over-and-over-again. Unfortunately for society, those wheels look more like a succession of Ponzi schemes, rather than a basic Model T.

[Dirk39]

11. Good point...

Although I'm a hardcore leftist:-), even those, who support a free market society, should be aware of this.
There's a tendency all over the globe, to go for short-time profits and thereby destroying the kind of stability that is a neccessity to survival for capitalism as a system. But if capitalism has reached self-destruction-mode, I'm the last to start crying, if it would be just about their profits, not about the millions of victims.

"While the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser."
Karl Marx

Dirk

[I AM SPARTACUS]

16. "if capitalism has reached self-destruction-mode..."

If capitalism has reached self-destruction-mode, I'll buy you a beer. Oops, correction, we'll toast with some home-brew...

(I suppose we'll have a bit of adjustment to make, necessary changes of vocabulary and colloqialisms...)

[idlisambar]

7. I am not sure if this is "real" capitalism...

...but it sounds like a rational economic system.

[rman]

17. depends on your definition of capitalism

Contemporary capitalists seem to think there can not be private enterprise without the possibility for unlimited self-enrichment.
They seem to think any limit on self-enrichment equates to having to give away all their wealth.

The only incentive for the capitalist seems to be the 'right' to take the biggest possible piece of the pie. That would not be a problem if it wouldn't be so that there is a finite amount of wealth (resources and labor) to go around. So if a few take the biggest possible piece of the pie then the majority quickly ends up with to little to make a living.

Surely working harder, being smarter, ought to be rewarded by higher profits/income. You can have that without it being unlimited. No way anyone can work a million times as hard or be a million times a smart as the next guy. So there's no right to be a million times more wealthy then the next guy, certainly not if it means the next guy can't make a decent living.

[NJCher]

8. thanks for that reminder, rpannier

And, btw, welcome to DU.

We don't have capitalism in the U.S. anymore. I have worked with a number of companies where I have seen the so-called "free market" system at work.

One was NAPA. Do you know that once a year, they sit down with their suppliers and tell them what they can charge for auto parts? And such practices are hardly confined to the automotive industry.


Cher

[Wonk]

9. Makes a diff if their target market for their products is local workers or

middle/upper management anywhere on the planet.

</Intro to Globalization 101>

[Dirk39]

10. Under the conditions of "globalisation"...

capitalism is just as rational as it was under the fashist antisemit Nazi Henry Ford. Now, there are other consumers, to buy your cars...
In a way, this is the reason, Keyne's economics don't work anymore.
As long as there are enough other people, to buy, whatever is produced..., who cares?

"The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people."
Karl Marx


Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[guitar man]

12. A quotable quote

"Nearly everything in this country is too high priced. The only thing that should be high priced in this country is the man that works. Wages must not come down, they must not even stay on their present level; they must go up. And even that is not sufficient of itself -- we must see to it that the increased wages are not taken away from the people by increased prices that do not represent increased values."

Henry Ford, New York Times, November 22, 1929 (5.0% unemployment)

[cprise]

13. I thought the real model for capitalism

...was the East India Company.

[Hammie]

14. Too right! <eom>

[buckeye1]

15. This is a great misunderstanding.

Ford decided to pay high wages because the turnover was 90%/yr. The tyranny of his factories made for a huge burn rate. If you think about it,his workforce could hardly sustain his sales. Ford made 27 million Model T's.

Two other points,Ford didn't raise wages after that. And he didn't "invent" the assembly line. He hired the men that devised the disassembly line for Chicago slaughter houses.

Ford was the last auto maker to unionize after many bloody battles. He was no friend of working people.