Henry Ford

[Communist Theory]

Well I didn't know this until this morning but Henry Ford was a anti-Semite and a strong Nazi sympathizer. Such a big fan of Adolf he was that he was bestowed with the great dishonor of the Grand Cross of the German Eagle for his anti-Semitic writings. He seems to have believed in a Zionist conspiracy much like the idiots we have today. Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_Jew) is the Wikipedia entry on his compelling works. :rolleyes:
Discuss.
Edit: Btw Henry Ford seems to know more then "the Secret" (http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/why-henry-ford-knew-more-than-the-secret.html)

[Sasha]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykP7utXGiCk

Lyrics to Henry Ford Was A Fascist :
Ford built tanks for the Nazis
And the Nazis used those tanks
To gun down lots of soldiers
In the U.S. Army ranks
Yes, Henry Ford was a fascist
And a nasty one was he
He'd build tanks for anyone
For the proper fee

Henry Ford spoke to his lackeys
And he said, "isn't this great?
"We'll attack our enemies
"And we'll retaliate!"
Henry Ford was a fascist
And a cunning liar, too
A brownshirt with a swastika
Draped in red, white and blue

Henry Ford spoke to his workers
And he said, "you dare not strike!
"You must be patriotic
"And take on my Third Reich!"
Yes, Henry Ford was a fascist
\ And he had not a care
About the dying soldiers
That made him a billionaire

Ford built tanks for the Nazis
And he built many more
To kill off lots of peasants
In Peru and Salvador
Yes, Henry Ford was a fascist
I heard that when he died
The last words to leave his lips
Was "arbeit macht frei"

The dollar was his icon
On whichever shore
And Henry's only motto
Was "make money and make war"
Yes, Henry Ford was a fascist
That's all I have to say
I will spit on Henry's rotting grave
Until my dying day

[JimmyJazz]

So was Charles Lindbergh.

[Communist Theory]

Lindbergh wasn't a anti-Semite the Nazis gave him that award because he toured the Luftwaffe.
I'll go into detail later.

[pastradamus]

I find it no shock that the Worlds first great industrialist and Modern Capitalist factory owner was also a Nazi sympathizer. Also he openly had a policy of not hiring Jews as well stealing the credit of the Assembly line "invention" from one of his aides.

[Communist Theory]

Ok Henry Ford received the Order of the German Eagle because of his anti-Semitic writings and support of the Nazi party. Charles Lindbergh went to Germany as a diplomat and to test the Luftwaffe aircraft for a report for the U.S. during the peacetime before WWII.
Edit: Lindbergh also tested Soviet aircraft during his tour overseas.

[pastradamus]

Ok Henry Ford received the Order of the German Eagle because of his anti-Semitic writings and support of the Nazi party. Charles Lindbergh went to Germany as a diplomat and to test the Luftwaffe aircraft for a report for the U.S. during the peacetime before WWII.


Now thats interesting.

[Tjis]

I wish there was an afterlife where Henry Ford would burn eternally.

[JimmyJazz]

Lindbergh wasn't a anti-Semite the Nazis gave him that award because he toured the Luftwaffe.

I'm not even sure what award you're talking about.

Read the section on political allegations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh#Political_allegations_against_Li ndbergh

[PRC-UTE]

I'm not even sure what award you're talking about.

Read the section on political allegations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh#Political_allegations_against_Li ndbergh

It mentions a nazi award in that wikipedia page you linked to:


Lindbergh's receipt of the German medal was approved without objection by the American embassy; the war had not yet begun in Europe.

it's under the section on political allegations.

[redSHARP]

he also sold spare parts and truck to Franco. i refuse to buy ford cars and trucks because of this prick.

[Revy]

he also sold spare parts and truck to Franco. i refuse to buy ford cars and trucks because of this prick.
What about Volkswagen? ;)

[JimmyJazz]

It mentions a nazi award in that wikipedia page you linked to:



it's under the section on political allegations.

OK. Well, as you can see, it's an insignificant part of the "Nazi-sympathizer" allegations against him. The allegations are because he really was a vocal sympathizer. And--like many at that time, admittedly--a eugenicist.

[Robespierre2.0]

I find it no shock that the Worlds first great industrialist and Modern Capitalist factory owner was also a Nazi sympathizer. Also he openly had a policy of not hiring Jews as well stealing the credit of the Assembly line "invention" from one of his aides.

He stole it from one of his aides? Can you prove this? I wouldn't doubt it, but I'd like to know more. I was going to play devil's advocate and give him some credit for his technical innovations, but if they were all stolen, I guess there really was nothing redeeming about him.

[JimmyJazz]

I was going to play devil's advocate and give him some credit for his technical innovations, but if they were all stolen, I guess there really was nothing redeeming about him.

His technical innovations were anti-working class, meant to increase the division of labor between mental and physical labor, and increased alienation/destroyed any semblance of workers' control. They took generalized commodity production to its most sickeningly extreme, yet logical, conclusion.

Not much worth giving credit for in that.

[LOLseph Stalin]

he also sold spare parts and truck to Franco.

Actually, US companies giving money and other things to Fascist governments wasn't uncommon. Just as much as the Fascists they wanted to stop Communism so by providing products to these Anti-Communist governments they may have been more willing to help in the fight against Communism. Besides, Fascism typically rises in countries where the economy is poor. If the economy is good then generally they felt that less people would turn to leftist ideas for solutions. Don't need to fix a problem if you don't have one or at least that may have been the mentality. For example, Big businesses loved Hitler for stopping Communism and the workers loved him for providing jobs even if they were just jobs in military production. It was still better than unemployment.

[Robespierre2.0]

His technical innovations were anti-working class, meant to increase the division of labor between mental and physical labor, and increased alienation/destroyed any semblance of workers' control. They took generalized commodity production to its most sickeningly extreme, yet logical, conclusion.

Not much worth giving credit for in that.

Are you referring to the assembly line? Sure, it was more alienating and horrible for the workers, but shouldn't we consider the increase in efficiency of the productive forces of society progressive, seeing as how it lays the foundation for socialism to be built upon? You're saying that there was nothing positive about these innovations- that the squalor and lack of workers' control was intrinsic to them- I'm curious as to whether we could glean some useful information from it, so that hopefully we could use it in a way that increases the productive power of factories without sacrificing the well-being of the workers.

I'll admit I'm not too familiar with the subject, but it seems to me like you want to write everything associated with Ford off simply because of his political beliefs. I say, it doesn't matter where technology or innovative ideas come from, as long as it's useful, and can be retrofitted in a manner that serves the interests of the working class- whether the guy that invented it was a fascist, capitalist, or socialist doesn't matter to me.

If I'm still wrong, please show me why.

[Guerrilla22]

Not that I'm defending the guy, he was an anti-semite, but a couple of things need to be cleared up. He did accept the the Order of the German Eagle before the war broke out, but he himslef and his company did not build tanks for the Nazi regime. There was a Ford factory in Germany before the war, once the war started the Nazis simply took over the factory and used it to produce tanks. The Ford Motor Company had no control over the factory when it was used to produce tanks.

That said, the company did produce tanks for the US military up through the 1980's and has been accused of being complicit in helping the Argentine military regime round up people active in organanized labor.

[JimmyJazz]

Are you referring to the assembly line? Sure, it was more alienating and horrible for the workers, but shouldn't we consider the increase in efficiency of the productive forces of society progressive, seeing as how it lays the foundation for socialism to be built upon? You're saying that there was nothing positive about these innovations- that the squalor and lack of workers' control was intrinsic to them- I'm curious as to whether we could glean some useful information from it, so that hopefully we could use it in a way that increases the productive power of factories without sacrificing the well-being of the workers.

Yes, I'm referring to the assembly line.

And I think we've identified a (the?) key difference between those who uphold Stalin and those who don't. Maybe even those who uphold the earlier Bolsheviks and those who don't.

If I wanted to see the productive forces built on the backs of miserable workers, I'd just be a capitalist. Why bother being a socialist if that's all you want to see? But since I want workers' control of production (its pace, duration, character and actual product), I am a socialist.


I say, it doesn't matter where technology or innovative ideas come from, as long as it's useful, and can be retrofitted in a manner that serves the interests of the working class- whether the guy that invented it was a fascist, capitalist, or socialist doesn't matter to me.

How can an anti-working class process be used to serve the interests of the working class?


it seems to me like you want to write everything associated with Ford off simply because of his political beliefs.

No, I can assure you it has nothing to do with his alleged fascism, and everything to do with the fact that I hold to the Marxist critique of working class oppression under capitalism--marked by an exaggerated and imposed division of labor in which "work loses all charm for the workman":


Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him...in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of machinery, etc.
Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.

I'll admit there is also a current in Marx and Engels' thinking that says capitalism is a fetter on the development of productive forces, and that calls for the "establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture." This is the only part of Marxism that has ever given me pause. I'm not sure exactly what the argument is for capitalism being a fetter on production (is it just that it causes crises of overproduction, and unemployment, or is there more to it?), but the history of the attempts to put the latter idea into practice seems to speak for itself.

I'm curious, what exactly do you find desirable about socialism/communism? (This is a serious question).

I mean, you're saying that under capitalism the process of scientific management "was more alienating and horrible for the workers", but that under a red flag, "we [a bureaucracy perhaps?] could use it in a way that increases the productive power of factories without sacrificing the well-being of the workers." I'd say it's incumbent upon you to show how this is possible, because you've got to admit that it seems implausible and rather ridiculous just on its face.

[Ismail]

For more on Henry Ford, from this (http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/rise_of_american_fascism.htm):

In conjunction with this there was growing popular anti-Semitism in America as well, and this anti-Semitism was largely adopted by these various nativist groups. Henry Ford was a major voice of anti-Semitism in the 1920s. Protestant Henry Ford, who started an anti-Semitic periodical called The Dearborn Independent in 1921, went on to publish The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a fraudulent writing which was claimed to be the secret hidden agenda of Jews to rule the world, and then published The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem.

Ford and the other writers of Dearborn Publishing promoted the view of superiority built on race, and opposed Jews and other minorities as racially and culturally inferior. According to this view the ideas of socialism, liberalism and Marxism were plots used by inferior races to promote equality and thereby elevate themselves to the level of the superior Anglo-Saxon Protestants, or to lower Anglo-Saxon Protestants to their "inferior" level.

Below is a small example of the material found in The Dearborn Independent and The International Jew:


WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT?

Simply identify the source and nature of the influence which has overrun our schools and universities. Let the students know that their choice is between the Anglo-Saxons and the Tribe of Judah. Let the students decide, in making up their allegiance, whether they will follow the Builders or those who seek to tear down. It is not a case for argument. The only absolute antidote to the Jewish influence is to call college students back to a pride of race.

We often speak of the Fathers as if they were the few who happened to affix their signatures to a great document which marked a new era of liberty. The Fathers of our nation were the men of the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic race. The men who came from Europe with civilization in their blood and in their destiny. The men who crossed the Atlantic and set up civilization on a bleak and rock-bound coast; the men who drove north to Alaska and west to California; the men who opened up the tropics and subdued the arctics; the men who mastered the African veldt; the men who peopled Australia and seized the gates of the world at Suez, Gibraltar and Panama; men who have given form to every government and a livelihood to every people and an ideal to every century. They got neither their God nor their religion from Judah, nor yet their speech nor their creative genius- they are the Ruling People. Chosen throughout the centuries to Master the world, by building it ever better and better, and not by breaking it down.

Into the camp of this race, among the sons of the rulers, comes a people that has no civilization to point to, no aspiring religion, no universal speech, no great achievement in any realm but the realm of "get," cast out of every land that gave them hospitality, and these people endeavor to tell the Sons of the Saxons what is needed to make the world what it ought to be!

If our sons follow this counsel of dark rebellion and destruction, it is because they do not know whose sons they are, of what race they are the scions. Let there be free speech to the limit in our universities and free intercourse of ideas, but let Jewish thoughts be labeled Jewish, and let our sons know the racial secret.

NAME THE ENEMY!

Judah has begun the struggle. Judah has made the invasion. Let it come. Let no man fear it. But let every a man insist that the fight be fair. Let college students and leaders of thought know that the objective is the regnancy of the ideas and the race that have built all the civilization we see and that promises all the civilization of the future; let them also know that the attacking force is Jewish.

That is all that will be necessary. It is against this that the Jews protest. "You must not identify us," they say, "You must not use the term 'Jew'." Why? Because unless the Jewish idea can creep in under the assumption of other than Jewish origin, it is doomed. Anglo-Saxon ideas dare proclaim themselves and their origin. A proper proclamation is all that is necessary today. Compel every invading idea to run up its flag!Ford's promotion of the 5 day work week, 8 hour work day, and his $5 a day program had some lesser known motivations as well. Ford was extremely opposed to unions and began promoting and adopting these policies as a way to make concession in order to prevent unionization in his plants. In addition he was interjecting an element of Biblical moralism into his policies as well. This was largely motivated by the fact that there was an association between atheism and the Socialist movement, which Ford opposed.

Ford had developed a "Sociological Department" for his company, the goal of which was to "put a soul into the company." Ford told the head of the department that he wanted him to, "put Jesus Christ in my factory." In order to qualify for the $5 a day wage that Ford was offering a worker had to submit to corporate surveillance of his lifestyle by the Sociological Department. Employees were subject to home inspections, had to prove they were sober, prove they regularly saved a portion of their paycheck, and prove that they were not "living riotously," which included activities such as gambling or staying out late.

Ford cooperated with the American Protective League, an organization of about 250,000 members, who's members were stationed in factories and mingled with the public, profiling working men and women. The objective of the APL was to profile workers and bring pressure against any workers who were organizing unions or getting involved in labor movements. Information collected by the APL was passed on to the Justice Department, military, and local law enforcement.

Ford's Sociological Department later developed into his "Service Department." In the book The Five Dollar Day, author Steven Meyer quotes Jonathon Norton Leonard from 1924:

"No one who works for Ford, is safe from spies-from superintendents on down to the poor creature who must clean a certain number of toilets an hour. There are spies who ask embarrassing questions of visitors' guides, spies who worm their way into labor unions, spies who speak every language under the sun. The system does not stop at the factory gates. An anonymous letter accusing a man of stealing Ford parts is enough to bring him before the 'Service Department.' He is forced to sign a 'Permission for Search' which allows Ford detectives to ransack his home, turn out all his poor possessions in hopes of finding a Ford incandescent lamp or a generator armature. There are spies to watch these in turn."Another good read on Ford from the era he was alive is in High Treason: The Plot Against the People (http://www.archive.org/details/hightreasonplota00kahnrich) by Albert E. Kahn.


Lindbergh wasn't a anti-Semite the Nazis gave him that award because he toured the Luftwaffe.From The Plot Against the Peace (another Kahn work from the 40's):

In the fall of 1941, in a raid on Maerz' residence, congressional investigators found more than half a ton of "anti-Semitic, pro-fascist, pro-German and pro-Japanese literature," quantities of stickers reading "Gentile America" and "Long Live Lindbergh," and numerous pictures of Adolf Hitler

[.....]

On October 30, 1941, Lindbergh told an America First mass rally in New York that he had long ago decided that Germany should be allowed to expand eastward or else there would be chaos and devastation in Europe. Lindbergh said:

"By 1938 I had come to the conclusion that if a war occurred between Germany on the one side and England and France on the other it would result in either German victory or in a prostrate and devastated Europe. I therefore advocated that Engand and France . . . permit Germany to expand eastward into Russia without declaring war."

[....]

According to New York newspaper reporters who discovered and exposed the clandestine meeting, one of the chief speakers was Horace J. Haase, former Brooklyn America First leader... Haase spoke of the day when the America First leaders would be able to come into the open again and head a new mass movement in the United States. "If and when that moment comes," said Haase, "I feel sure that our leaders, especially the Colonel [Lindbergh], will take the leadership and lead us to victory."

This propaganda was disseminated not only by German agents in the United States. The official spokesman of the America First Committee, Charles E. Lindbergh, had informed the American people in 1941 that only "the British, the Jews and the Roosevelt Administration" had anything to profit from a war against Axis aggression. Similar statements were repeatedly broadcast by other prominent America First spokesmen and by the America First press. Through these irresponsible elements, Nazi propagandists actually succeeded in gaining political influence in American affairs.From The Great Conspiracy: The Secret War Against Soviet Russia (yet another Kahn work, but they're easy to get access too):

As the Munich negotiations got under way, small select groups of anti-Soviet British businessmen, aristocrats and politicians gathered at Lady Astor's estate at Cliveden to hear Lindbergh's views or the European situation. Lindbergh spoke of Germany's vast air power, swiftly expanding war production and brilliant military leadership. The Nazis, he repeated again and again, were invincible. He recommended that France and Great Britain come to terms with Hitler and "permit Germany to expand eastward into Russia without declaring war." (12)

[....]

As soon as the Nazis invaded Poland, and Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, Lindbergh rushed into print with an urgent pronunciamento: the war against Germany was the wrong war; the right war lay to the east. In an article entitled "Aviation, Geography and Race," in the November issue of Reader's Digest, in language startlingly reminiscent of Alfred Rosenberg, Lindbergh declared: -


We, the heirs of European culture, are on the verge of a disastrous war, a war within our own family of nations, a war which will reduce the strength and destroy the treasures of the white race... Asia presses toward us on the Russian border, all foreign races stir relentlessly... We can have peace and security only so long as we band together or preserve that most priceless possession our inheritance of European blood, only so long as we guard ourselves against attack by foreign armies, and dilution by foreign races.(12) In 1937, John C. Metcalfe, a reporter for the Chicago Daily Times and later a Federal agent, had recorded the following statement made to him by Hermann Schwarzmann, leader of the Astoria, Long Island, unit of the German American Bund: "You know who might become the Fuehrer of our great political party? Lindbergh! Yes, that is not so far-fetched as you might think. You know he could carry the public with him very easily."
Edit: Lindbergh also tested Soviet aircraft during his tour overseas.Once again from The Great Conspiracy:

Two years later, in the crucially decisive days preceding the Munich Pact, Lindbergh visited the Soviet Union. He was there only a few days. On his return, he immediately began spreading the word that the Red Army was hopelessly ill-equipped, badly trained and wretchedly commanded. He asserted that Soviet Russia would be useless as a partner in any military alliance against Nazi Germany. In his opinion, Lindbergh declared, it was necessary to co-operate with, not against, the Nazis....

A series of intimate conferences were arranged for Lindbergh with British Members of Parliament and various key political figures. Among them was David Lloyd George, who subsequently had this to say about the American flyer: -


He was in Russia, I think, about a week. He had not seen any of the great leaders of Russia, he could not have seen much of the air force, and he came back and told us that the Russian army was no good, that Russian factories were in an awful mess. And there were a great many who believed it - except Hitler.Lloyd George's conversation with Lindbergh left the former Prime Minister with the conviction, as he put it, that the American flyer was "the agent and the tool of much more astute and sinister men than himself."

From the Soviet Union came the same accusation in more specific language. A group of outstanding Soviet flyers published a statement in Moscow accusing Lindbergh of circulating the "colossal lie" that "Germany possesses such a strong air force it is capable of defeating the combined air fleets of England, France, Russia and Czechoslovakia." The Soviet airmen went on to say: -


Lindbergh plays the role of a stupid liar, lackey and flatterer of German Fascists and their English aristocratic protectors. He had an order from English reactionary circles to prove the weakness of Soviet aviation and give Chamberlain an argument for capitulation at Munich in connection with Czechoslovakia.Three weeks after the signing of the Munich Pact, the Government of the Third Reich demonstrated its official appreciation of the services Lindbergh had rendered Nazi Germany. On the evening of October 18, 1938, at a dinner given in Lindbergh's honor in Berlin, Field Marshal Goering conferred on the American flyer one of Germany's highest decorations, the Order of the German Eagle...
There was a Ford factory in Germany before the war, once the war started the Nazis simply took over the factory and used it to produce tanks. The Ford Motor Company had no control over the factory when it was used to produce tanks.To my knowledge it was bombed during WWII by the Allies. Ford sued and won compensation.

[Guerrilla22]

To my knowledge it was bombed during WWII by the Allies. Ford sued and won compensation.

I have never heard anything about that. Do you have a source?

[Ismail]

I have never heard anything about that. Do you have a source?From here (http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_06.htm):
Although there is evidence that European plants owned by Wall Street interests were not bombed by the U.S. Air Force in World War II, this restriction apparently did not reach the British Bombing Command. In March 1942 the Royal Air Force bombed the Ford plant at Poissy, France. A subsequent letter from Edsel Ford to Ford General Manager Sorenson about this RAF raid commented, "Photographs of the plant on fire were published in American newspapers but fortunately no reference was made to the Ford Motor Company."15 In any event, the Vichy government paid Ford Motor Company 38 million francs as compensation for damage done to the Poissy plant.Source noted for citation 15 is Josiah E. Dubois, Jr., Generals in Grey Suits, (London: The Bodley Head, 1958), p. 251.

Then from here (http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/%7Ergibson/fordnazis.html):

Dearborn was not satisfied with that amount. In 1965 Ford went before the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission of the US to ask for an additional $7 million. (During the hearings, commission attorney Zvonko Rode pointed to the embarrassing fact—which Ford's attorney did not dispute—that most of the manufactured products destroyed during the bombings had been intended for use of the Nazi armed forces.) In the end, the commission awarded the company $1.1 million—but only after determining that Ford used a fradulent exchange rate to jack up the size of the alleged damages. The commission also found that Dearborn had sought compensation for merchandise that had been destroyed by flooding.

[Glenn Beck]

Yes, I'm referring to the assembly line.

And I think we've identified a (the?) key difference between those who uphold Stalin and those who don't. Maybe even those who uphold the earlier Bolsheviks and those who don't.

If I wanted to see the productive forces built on the backs of miserable workers, I'd just be a capitalist. Why bother being a socialist if that's all you want to see? But since I want workers' control of production (its pace, duration, character and actual product), I am a socialist.



How can an anti-working class process be used to serve the interests of the working class?



No, I can assure you it has nothing to do with his alleged fascism, and everything to do with the fact that I hold to the Marxist critique of working class oppression under capitalism--marked by an exaggerated and imposed division of labor in which "work loses all charm for the workman":



I'll admit there is also a current in Marx and Engels' thinking that says capitalism is a fetter on the development of productive forces, and that calls for the "establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture." This is the only part of Marxism that has ever given me pause. I'm not sure exactly what the argument is for capitalism being a fetter on production (is it just that it causes crises of overproduction, and unemployment, or is there more to it?), but the history of the attempts to put the latter idea into practice seems to speak for itself.

I'm curious, what exactly do you find desirable about socialism/communism? (This is a serious question).

I mean, you're saying that under capitalism the process of scientific management "was more alienating and horrible for the workers", but that under a red flag, "we [a bureaucracy perhaps?] could use it in a way that increases the productive power of factories without sacrificing the well-being of the workers." I'd say it's incumbent upon you to show how this is possible, because you've got to admit that it seems implausible and rather ridiculous just on its face.

I don't see what is so inherently malicious about the fundamental principle of the assembly line: the specialization of tasks amongst workers in order to greatly improve efficiency, ease of work, and sometimes even safety. Your position strongly resembles Luddism: the opposition to the form and technique used by capitalist exploitation rather than the exploitation itself. Every pernicious effect of assembly line manufacturing can be eliminated by worker input.

Workers could easily develop a system for rotating roles and almost certainly would do so if left to their own devices without every aspect of work being managed.

A socialist system is far less likely to take corner-cutting measures like skimping on safety equipment and ergonomics, and would not have much incentive to overwork unless in conditions of severe material scarcity where there is no other alternative.

I don't understand what your desirable alternative to mass production is. A return to petty crafts production? That system is a tremendous waste of human labor which takes up all of the time of a great many workers without being productive enough to support the needs of society.

A worker controlled system of mass production with rotation of duties seems to solve the problems of organization better than any alternative. The knowledge gained by workers being responsible for every task in their particular production process at some point would lead them to develop insights into how to make work easier and more productive on their own, and one could retain the organizational benefits of an overseer/manager role without creating a workplace hierarchy simply by making it another necessary role to be exchanged with no particular privileges attached.

[Guerrilla22]

From here (http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_06.htm):Source noted for citation 15 is Josiah E. Dubois, Jr., Generals in Grey Suits, (London: The Bodley Head, 1958), p. 251.

Then from here (http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/%7Ergibson/fordnazis.html):

Ok, but I was refering to the Ford factories in Germany.

[Ismail]

Ok, but I was refering to the Ford factories in Germany.It was probably under German control. Poissy (in Paris) was occupied by German troops. As far as I know, occupied France was meant to be for the Vichy government to control (which is why the Vichy government, not Germany footed the bill), but was kept mostly in German hands for obvious military reasons. In any case, it's still Ford trying to gain compensation for a factory that was being used for the Nazi war machine being bombed by the Allies.

[Guerrilla22]

It was probably under German control. Poissy (in Paris) was occupied by German troops. As far as I know, occupied France was meant to be for the Vichy government to control (which is why the Vichy government, not Germany footed the bill), but was kept mostly in German hands for obvious military reasons. In any case, it's still Ford trying to gain compensation for a factory that was being used for the Nazi war machine being bombed by the Allies.

Yeah they never have missed an opprotunity to make a buck. :rolleyes:
I would have to point out that the Germans didn't need Ford to design/build tanks, the Sherman which was designed and built by Ford was far inferior to anything the Germans had.