raghu wrote: > As I understand it, Ford more than doubled workers salaries in > exchange for (1) a calm and productive labor force and (2) allegedly > as a form of vendor financing to enlarge the market for his product.
I think people (including Barbara Ehrenreich in an otherwise-good recent column in THE PROGRESSIVE) should abandon the idea that Ford raised wages to create a market for his cars. It just doesn't make sense: he wasn't a nice guy and there's no guarantee that they wouldn't spend their extra wages on other things besides Ford cars. I'll look for the article that debunks the story about Ford raising wages for demand-promotion reasons, but there's no guarantee I'll find it soon. He raised wages to minimize worker turnover, which had soared after he introduced assembly line production. -- Jim Devine / "The truth is at once less sinister and more dangerous." -- Naomi Klein.
