Ford Progressive Essay - Sungwon Kim PDF

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Kim 1 Sungwon Kim Professor Donald Niemann, Leigh Ann Wheeler Modern American Civilization 18 February 2015 Henry Ford Stuck to His Guns United States of America has a very short history compared to other civilizations of the world. It is so that some might say that there is a need to study every trifling detail of the short three hundred year history, or five hundred (if you count the colonial period). However, America has a very unique and daring history that entails how an empty continent became the most powerful nation in the world, comparable to Rome during its times, in three hundred years since acquiring their independence. It shows its observers the struggles and obstacles it had to overcome to come to this day. Progressive movement is a movement that happened after Civil War, lots of issues arise with the expansion of industries and how the American society solved its way out of the mess. Among the issues were social issues such as racial and gender issues. Progressive movement was America’s way of the working class masses, or dare I say the Proletariat voicing its opinion and fighting for their rights against the few who took advantage of the arising Industries and made a fortune for themselves (Brinkley 494). However, just because he or she was among the few who made it, did not mean he or she was not among the progressives. Henry Ford was one of the few who made it. He invented automobiles during when people refused to believe that carriages could move without horses pulling it. He changed the landscape of America forever at the time, and now the world. However, he was also a Progressive reformer because he set the blueprint of mass-producing industries and interpersonal relationship between employers and employees.

Kim 2 Today, one of the large issues in South Korean society is employer and employee relationship and the wealth gap between the rich and the poor. There are strikes every month. Fired employees often conduct hunger strikes in front of the company-gates and doing interviews with newspapers. However this conflict between the rich and the poor has only become an issue as of late. Although Korea has industrialized long before, workers have now risen up to voice their opinion. In America’s case, American society has gone through this a century ago. With the emergence of railroads, American society saw rapid expansion of industries and with that a new social class emerged called the industrial workers. With this new frontier, come the lawlessness and the need for a blueprint. In a time where a lot of employers were wondering how much work hours they could get from employees while paying them as little as possible, and employees wondering how much wages they can get out of their employers, Henry Ford understood the interconnectedness of the business and the partnership that employers and employees must share in order to create a close-to-ideal environment in the workplace. He says in his autobiography that there is a reciprocal relation between the boss and his worker. Not one group can think that he is indispensable or be excessively assertive over the cost of the other. It should be their ambition to work together for better wages than their competitors (Ford 117). Ford has strong convictions about life and his beliefs did not sway during the thick and thin of his uphill climb towards success. The convictions he had about a man’s work when he was a simple mechanic have followed him to the top to being the head of America’s biggest automobile company. Contrary to a lot of struggling working class men, Ford believed that work is what keeps our sanity, our drive and it is our salvation. Only from honest work can social justice happen and one only gets out what he or she gives. The best worker is one that gives his or her best to the workplace and there should be no charity in the boss’s part to his or her workers

Kim 3 (Ford 120). Just like how he climbed his ladder to success, he had a blueprint for himself and he wanted his employers to follow it. Ford is progressive because he imposed his blueprint and his convictions onto thousands of people. It seems like a beautiful flower has emerged from a pile of garbage, where everywhere else it is a fight between the employee and the employer while Ford is fostering partnership between the two and saying we must all work together for one single purpose while helping each other to the fullest. It seems too ideal, this idea of “employeremployee peaceful co-existence,” but that is what he believed in. “And the secret of it all is in a recognition of human partnership. Until each man is absolutely sufficient unto himself, needing the services of no other human being in any capacity whatever, we shall never get beyond the need of partnership.” (Ford 121) It is evident that Henry Ford had strong convictions and that he stuck to them when World War I broke out and he refused to sell any, again, not one car to the warring nations. Although this yielded good results for Ford and his workers when, as a result, other motor companies focused on war and Ford’s cars profited more from the general population of America. However, while every other motor company’s instinct was to profit from the newly emerged conflict across the Atlantic, Ford did the unthinkable. He refused to conduct business with the British government and that made the agents from Britain very puzzled (Sinclair 32). Maybe Ford knew that his production would increase if he exploited the general population in America? Whatever his intentions were, he made it clear through publicity and media that he was a thorough hater of war. “ I can think of nothing lower in the moral scale than a man who will grow rich on the blood of soldiers driven to battle, one against another, for no reason whatever” Ford said in a newspaper article. He looked at war nothing more than a murder and soldiers nothing more than murderers. Ford never liked politics very much and despised the fact that

Kim 4 people were dying because of the “parasites who control the governments of the countries now at war.” Understandable thought since Ford worked his way to the top using mainly his knowledge and convictions. One could also say that he was not a progressive, and that he only did these things purely for business and profitable reasons. One could say that Ford saw that his cars themselves were advertisements for Ford Motor and that is why he made it available for the common man for cheaper prices - that he saw an opportunity to make his model to be the most prevalent in America when other companies will be focused on the war effort. But the biggest reason might be from the Ford’s battle with the workers and their desire to have a union. Upton Sinclair says in his autobiography that the reason why Ford yielded by the workers’ demands is because his wife threatened to leave him if he chose to shut down the factory over the conflict. However, before concluding just from this fact that Ford only abided by the workers’ demands because of his personal matters, one needs to examine what Ford thinks about the subject of unionization and how it will affect the overall outlook of his business. In 1913, the workers were dissatisfied because of long hours, low wages, bad housing conditions, domestic troubles, undesirable shop conditions, and the unintelligent handling of the men by the foremen and superintendents. Of course, these are legitimate reasons for the workers to be dissatisfied with, however Ford already had fiver-dollar work days, which was unprecedented and had reduced his work hours from nine to eight. It seems to be that these workers were blaming their personal life problems on their employer. Ford writes in his autobiography about his disdain for unions and strikes, “Killing the business by a strike or a lockout does not help” (Ford 118). He thought of labor strikes as killing the business which laborers have spent years in and set their livelihood in. He also says that both the employer and employee will eventually turn to the question of how can this industry improve

Kim 5 in safety and profit and improve all of their lives. Ford did not hate the workers for striking or trying to unionize. Ford just hated the idea of fighting about it because it is pointless for both parties and it will only lead them to the same question later. Through Ford’s authenticity came about America’s most successful automobile company that will change the world’s way of transportation for decades to come. While others were trying to make automobiles a commodity for the rich, Ford lowered the price and increased the quantity to make it available for the common man of America. Through his work, the landscape of transportation changed in the nation. He was not driven by his personal greed or desire for money and success. He only followed his true convictions sometimes ideals that were too advanced for his time. He saw the interconnectedness of from something so trivial as the reason why a man works to how a nation functions. He saw the importance in wages of the workers and that a man’s wages determined his scale of life; and that a man’s scale of life determines the prosperity of the country (Ford 116). Although his strong convictions sought him envy and criticism from people with different views. When the industry world was led by cruelty by the boss and outcry from the workers, Ford had visions of employers and employees seeing eye-toeye. As a man of prosperity and power, it really helped that Ford saw things that way and gave a lot of people hope in a very desolate world where a person works day in and day out in order to feed his or her family....