Our country has just begun to develop; no matter what they say about our amazing successes, we barely plowed through the top cover. Despite this, our successes have been amazing enough. But if we compare what has been done with what remains to be done, all our successes turn into nothing. One has only to remember that more power is expended in plowing the land than in all the industrial enterprises of the country put together - and - one immediately gets an idea of the possibilities that lie before us. And precisely now, when so many states are going through a process of fermentation, now, with the unrest reigning everywhere, the moment has apparently come when it is appropriate to recall something from the area of the tasks ahead, in the light of the tasks already solved.
When one speaks of the growing power of machine and industry, the image of a cold, metallic world easily arises before us, in which trees, flowers, birds, grasslands are supplanted by the grandiose factories of a world of iron machines and human machines. I do not share this view. Moreover, I believe that if we do not learn how to use machines better, we will not have time to enjoy trees and birds, flowers and meadows.
In my opinion, we have done too much to frighten away the joy of life by thinking about the opposition of the concepts of "existence" and "sustainability". We waste so much time and energy that we have little left for the pleasures of life. Power and machinery, money and possessions are useful only insofar as they contribute to the freedom of life. They are only a means to an end. For example, I look at cars that bear my name, not only as cars. If they were just that, I would have done something else. To me, they are clear evidence of a business theory that I hope is more than a business theory, namely, a theory whose goal is to create a source of joy out of the world. The fact of the extraordinary success of the Ford Automobile Society is significant in that it shows irrefutably how correct my theory has hitherto been. Only with this premise can I judge existing methods of production, finance, and society from the point of view of a man who is not enslaved by them.
If I pursued only selfish goals, I would not need to seek to change the established methods. If I thought only of acquisition, the present system would be excellent for me: it supplies me with money in abundance. But I remember the duty of service. The present system does not give the highest measure of productivity, for it promotes waste in all its forms; it robs many people of the product of their labour. She has no plan. It all depends on the degree of planning and expediency.
I have nothing against the general tendency to ridicule new ideas. It is better to be skeptical of all new ideas and demand proof of their correctness than to chase after every new idea in a state of constant thought cycle. Skepticism, coinciding with caution, is the compass of civilization. There is no idea that is good just because it is old, or bad because it is new; but, if the old idea justified itself, then this is strong evidence in its favor. Ideas are valuable in themselves, but every idea is, after all, just an idea. The challenge is to put it into practice.
First of all, I want to prove that the ideas we apply can be applied everywhere, that they concern not only the field of cars or tractors, but, as it were, are part of a certain general code. I am firmly convinced that this code is quite natural, and I would like to prove this with such immutability that would result in the recognition of our ideas not as new, but as a natural code.
It is quite natural to work in the consciousness that happiness and well-being are obtained only by honest work. Human misfortunes are largely the result of an attempt to turn away from this natural path. I am not going to suggest anything that would go beyond the unconditional recognition of this natural principle. I start from the assumption that we have to work. The successes we have achieved so far are, in essence, the result of a certain logical realization: since we have to work, it is better to work smart and prudently; the better we work, the better we will be. That's what prescribes us, in my opinion, elementary, common human sense.
One of the first rules of caution teaches us to be on our guard and not to confuse reactionary actions with reasonable measures. We have just gone through a period of fireworks in every respect and have been inundated with programs and plans for idealistic progress. But we didn't go further than that. All together it looked like a rally, but not like a progressive movement. I had to hear a lot of beautiful things; but when we got home, we discovered that the fire in the hearth had gone out. Reactionaries usually take advantage of the depression that follows such periods and begin to refer to the "good old days" - mostly filled with the worst old abuses - and since they have neither vision nor imagination, they pass for "practical people" on occasion. . Their return to power is often hailed as a return to common sense.
The main functions are agriculture, industry and transport. Without them, social life is impossible. They hold the world together. The cultivation of the land, the manufacture and distribution of commodities, are as primitive as human needs, and yet more vital than anything. They are the quintessence of physical life. If they die, then public life will end.
Any amount of work. Business is nothing but work. On the contrary, speculation in ready-made products has nothing to do with business - it means nothing more and nothing less than a more decent form of theft, which cannot be eradicated by legislation. In general, little can be achieved through legislation: it is never constructive. It is incapable of going beyond the limits of police power, and therefore it is a waste of time to expect from our government agencies in Washington or in the main cities of the states what they cannot do. As long as we expect legislation to cure poverty and remove privilege from the world, we are destined to see poverty grow and privilege multiply. We've relied on Washington for too long, and we've got too many legislators - though they don't have as much freedom in our country as they do in other countries - but they attribute to laws a power they don't have.
If you inspire a country, for example ours, that Washington is heaven, where omnipotence and omniscience sit on thrones above the clouds, then the country begins to fall into dependence that does not promise anything good in the future. Help will come not from Washington, but from ourselves; moreover, we ourselves may be able to help Washington, as a kind of center where the fruits of our labors are concentrated for their further distribution for the common good. We can help the government, not the government to us.
The motto "less administrative spirit in business life and more business spirit in administration" is very good, not only because it is useful both in business and in government, but also because it is useful to the people. The United States was not created for business reasons. A declaration of independence is not a commercial document, and the constitution of the United States is not a catalog of goods. The United States is a country, government and economic life is only a means to give value to the life of the people. The government is only his servant, and must always remain so. As soon as the people become an appendage to the government, the law of retribution comes into force, for such a ratio is unnatural, immoral and inhuman. It is impossible to do without business life and government. Both, playing a service role, are as necessary as water and bread; but, starting to rule, they go against the natural order. Taking care of the well-being of the country is the duty of each of us. Only under this condition will the matter be set up correctly and reliably. Promises cost nothing to the government, but it is not able to fulfill them. True, governments can juggle currency as they did in Europe (and as financiers around the world still do and will do as long as the net income gets into their pocket); at the same time, a lot of solemn nonsense dangles. Meanwhile, work, and only work, can create value. Deep down everyone knows this.
Henry Ford
My life, my achievements
Foreword
This book has bypassed almost all states. It has been printed in many languages. Her publications sold like hot cakes everywhere.
The burning interest in it was created not by artificial advertising hype, but by its very content: - behind this book is the life and work of a very big person, behind it is the practical experience of the creator of a production that has never been experienced in terms of scale and organization.
Much was written about him, as a billionaire, as the greatest industrialist of the New World, as a brilliant ignoramus-mechanic. But he himself kept silent, not appearing either in literature or in the press.
And finally, Ford's book about himself appeared. She immediately became famous.
The whole life of Ford, this sixty-year-old, the richest man in the world, is full of outstanding moments. The beginning of his career is especially curious, when, heroically overcoming material obstacles and not getting enough sleep, he developed his own, still unsurpassed, car model for two and a half years.
Now he is a billionaire industrialist, engineer, businessman, candidate for the presidency of the United States, of course, looking for explanations, if not justifications, for his activities before the revolution in this book and himself.
The figure of this man cannot surprise with its enslavement of thought; on the contrary, it would be strange to see the opposite in him under all conditions.
The clashes that Ford had to have with himself did not go unnoticed by him, and he found light explanations for them: all people are different, there can be no equality, even two Fords are not equal to each other, the author notes, not seeing in his confession to himself same sentence.
This colossus, it seems, has risen in our time only to bring it down at the top of capitalism. Ford's opposition to coming life forms is unspeakably strong. A pacifist at the beginning of the World War, who even sued over peacekeeping activities, and then a conscious militarist who provided enormous assistance during the period of America's participation in the war - all the time Ford, continuing to sail along the course of capitalist profit, does not leave the imperialist boat.
Ford is completely original and does not resemble other American billionaires: Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan, etc., who glorify the utility of capital for society, but he does not go far from them, converging with them in a single goal. Miracles are written about Ford in the foreign press as an industrialist, and they recommend following his ideas and examples of his production, especially for Germany, forgetting that there are no or almost no imitators of him in terms of the scientific organization of production, even in America itself, where there were only unsuccessful ones. followers.
It would be out of place to explain the reason for the latter: it, apparently, lies in the talent of the system invented by Ford, which, like any perfect system, only guarantees a better organization. However, from here it is still far from the organization of the national economy of the country, which Ford talks about every now and then.
In his book, Ford writes what he learned in production, but this is what proves that, having learned and created, he did not understand production itself. He did not understand the economic essence of the production process, although he perfectly establishes it in practice. That's why he doesn't understand the Fordism he's rebelling against. Ford with all his being is against socialism and against Fordism.
Ford is against the wage equation and does not understand the essence of his achievements - the force of inertia that develops in the process. On the contrary, he is only for an increase in wages, wanting to instill in the workers a sense of dependence on the enterprise, which is why he calls his workers his partners. And despite the fact that the whole system, formed by the skillful organization of the production process, is aimed at the destruction of craftsmanship and privileged specialists who are not needed for the mass production of things when labor is divided into operations, Ford does not see and does not appreciate the special utility in this.
If Ford had been liberated in his thinking, if he had freed himself from the hereditary fetters of the century, he would have done even more for Fordism. But he, enriching himself, allocates only a small share and, moreover, only for his own workers.
Fordism is a system whose principles have long been known, laid down by Marx and constitute the law of the division of labor. A production model is only advantageous for production when it can be easily divided into operations, the number of which should be neither large nor small. The process, set up correctly, is marked by the rhythmic action of production, where fast work can be just as unprofitable as slow work. The unnoticed natural force of inertia, or the production rumble that develops in the process, constitutes an element of Fordism.
The progressive assembly lines created by Ford on this basis, the procurement of things in mass quantities, the cycle of rotation of materials and the receipt of processed fabrications as a whole, also constitute Fordism, which is provided by an internal system that destroys all qualifications and specialization and therefore requires equalization of wages.
The accuracy of manufacturing, which is due to the depersonalization of labor, comes with Ford to one ten-thousandth of an inch.
The speed of manufacture and the developed inertia, introduced into the process of collective labor, gives a mass result in the production of things.
Refusing to see in good cars the importance that is wrongly attributed to them, as well as to any technique, Ford guesses the perfect organization of production, which is composed of many elements of Fordism, but not of any one. A perfect organization does not consist of good machines and good people, but consists of what we generally call a system.
- Less schemes, bureaucracy, titles, posts, servility, patronage! - proclaims Ford, dreaming of correcting capitalist production, in which there is no system perfection. Ford constantly confuses the organization of business and individual production with the economy of the country.
Ford goes against the definitions of financial science and goes to war with credit and banks, while also being a kind of banker himself.
He is not, as he says, a supporter of capital, which can do everything, and not an adherent of the production of profit, considering himself free from the violence of capital.
For all citizens of Russia, it is not Ford's inventions that are instructive, but the foundations of his economy and production. The interest of his book lies mainly in the practice of both production and large financial transactions. The success of all this created for Ford the idea of the possibility of a close community between the owner and the worker.
There are several turning points in Ford's industrial path that appear intertwined as technical and economic.
Prior to the progressive assembly of cars invented by Ford, never before could an ornamental mass of individual things be sent from the factory to the points of sale without the risk of not collecting them there, but when this mass flowed at the Ford plant like lava made by emigrants of 53 nationalities, Ford found it necessary to ensure its export and transport of materials by new railway lines.
This new turning point led to the need to adapt transportation to production, and Ford buys an entire rail line from the government.
At this point, the assembly of cars at the plant stops and is transferred to 30 places in America. The "cost" is changing; most of the overhead costs are related to warehouses, to points of sale and assembly. Trade processes were combined with production processes, dispersing part of the total costs. Invisibly, production, consumption, and distribution regroup, affecting selling prices.
Ford has long predicted that he will not be afraid of duties and tariffs for his business, since the blank mass of automobile parts disperses overhead costs, withstanding very long distances to deliver them to the place, with relatively short distances from where materials for them are obtained to the factory .
The importance that mass production has acquired, which has abolished distance and significantly reduced the applicability of credit to production, has provided new ways for the formation of accumulation of hitherto unseen masses of capital, accumulated in one hand.
In short, Ford's production has recreated an industry where credit no longer plays its usual role.
Ask the question: who invented the car? Many will answer: Henry Ford. This common misconception is a reward for the man who made the car accessible to millions of people.Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863 to a Michigan farmer, an immigrant from Ireland. The father was dissatisfied with him, considering him a lazy and sissy - the son behaved like a prince who accidentally found himself on a farm. Everything he was told, Henry did reluctantly. He hated chickens and cows and hated milk. “Already in my early youth I thought that many things could be done differently, in some other way.” For example, he, Henry, has to climb steep stairs every morning, carrying buckets of water. Why do this every day when you can just lay two meters of water pipes underground?
American engineer, industrialist, inventor. One of the founders of the US automotive industry, founder of the Ford Motor Company, organizer of the conveyor production line. Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863, on a farm located near Dearborn, Michigan (USA). “There is a legend that my parents were very poor and had a hard time. They were, however, not rich, but there was no question of real poverty. For Michigan farmers, they were even prosperous. [...] the most important event of my childhood years was my meeting with a locomobile, about eight miles from Detroit, when we were driving into the city one day. I was then twelve years old. the same year, there was a watch given to me. [...] This locomobile was the reason that I immersed myself in automotive technology. [...] When I went to the city, my pockets were always stuffed with all sorts of rubbish: nuts and pieces of iron. Often I managed to get a broken watch, and I tried to fix it. At the age of thirteen I managed to fix the clock for the first time so that it ran correctly. From the age of fifteen I could repair almost any watch, although my tools were very primitive. [ ...] I never could be especially interested in farm work. I wanted to deal with cars. My father was not very sympathetic to my passion for mechanics. He wanted me to become a farmer. When I left school at the age of seventeen and entered Drydock's machine shop as an apprentice, I was considered nearly dead." (Henry Ford, My Life, My Achievements, 1922)
In 1879 (at the age of 16) he received a job as an apprentice machinist in Detroit. After graduating, he was engaged in the installation and repair of steam engines on steam locomotives, worked for several years as a mechanic in various companies. In the same years, he worked part-time repairing watches (later it turned into his hobby for life) and studied mechanics and engineering on his own. "May 31, 1921, the Ford Automobile Society produced car No. 5,000,000. Now it stands in my museum, next to a small gasoline cart with which I began my experiments and which went for the first time in the spring of 1893 to my great pleasure. [. ..] That little old cart, despite its two cylinders, ran twenty miles an hour and kept, with its tank of only 12 liters, a full sixty miles. (Henry Ford, "My Life, My Achievements", 1922) From 1893 - chief engineer of the Edison Illuminating Company (Thomas Edison's Electric Company, creator of the light bulb). In 1892 - 1893 he created his first car with a 4-stroke internal combustion engine (Ford brand). In 1899, he resigned as chief engineer to devote himself entirely to creating his own automobile company in Detroit. In 1899 - 1902 - chief engineer of the Detroit Automotive Company. The company went bankrupt, and Ford decided to build a reputation for his cars by participating in auto racing: he managed to become a very popular race car driver.
In 1903, with the help of a group of financiers, he founded the Ford Motor Company. Henry Ford received 25.5% of the shares. The authorized capital amounted to 150 thousand dollars, of which only 28 thousand were received in cash. However, just a month later, the company's first car was produced. In 1905, Ford's financial partners did not agree with his intention to produce cheap cars, because. expensive models were in demand, the main shareholder Alexander Malcolmson sold his share to Ford, after which Henry Ford became the owner of a controlling stake and the president of the company (he was president of the company in 1905 - 1919 and in 1943 - 1945). In 1908, for the first time in the world, Ford began producing a mass cheap car - the Model T (Ford Model T) appeared, and in the first year the Ford Corporation was able to sell 10,000 cars of this model. Before the "Model T" appeared, 8 other models were created, the distinguishing feature of which was their low price. The main goal of Henry Ford was the transformation of the car from a luxury item into an essential item. "When the Model T came out, most cars in the US cost between $1,100 and $1,700, with luxury cars going up to $2,500. And then there's a pretty decent Ford Model T car that costs only $825-$850...Ah for those years $400 difference is a lot of money... The average worker in the US then received $100 a month... Before the car was considered a toy only for the rich... thanks to Ford, a person working in a plant or factory 40 hours a week, first time I had the opportunity to buy a new car." (From an interview with Bob Stevens, editor of the American magazine Kars and Parts). Sales in the United States were carried out by a dealer network created for the first time: in 1913-1914, Ford had 7 thousand such dealers, who not only sold, but also repaired the Model T. By 1914, the number of Model T cars sold reached 250,000, which accounted for about 50% of the entire US car market of those years. By 1927, when the "Model T" was discontinued, the number of cars sold in this series reached 15 million. In the entire history of the global automotive industry, only the famous "Beetles" of the German corporation "Volkswagen" were sold more.
In order to exercise strict control, he created a full production cycle: from ore mining and metal smelting to the production of a finished car. In 1914, he introduced the highest minimum wage in the United States - $ 5 a day, allowed workers to participate in the company's profits, built a model workers' settlement, but until 1941 did not allow unions to form in his factories. In 1914, the factories of the corporation began to work around the clock in 3 shifts of 8 hours each, instead of working in 2 shifts of 9 hours, which made it possible to provide work for several thousand additional people. An "increased salary" of $5 was not guaranteed to everyone: the worker had to spend his salary wisely, to support his family, but if he drank the money, he was fired. These rules were maintained in the corporation until the period of the Great Depression.
In January 1928, a new "Model A" appeared. An innovation was the protective windshield installed during assembly, which has since become an indispensable element of the car. Glass could be colored and 17 configurations. All 4 wheels were fitted with brake pads and hydraulic shock absorbers. Although both buyers and dealers liked the new model, Ford's former position as the undisputed leader in the automotive industry could no longer be restored: by 1940, the corporation already accounted for less than 20% of the US market.
Cooperation with Russia began in 1909, when sales offices of the company were opened in St. Petersburg, and then in Moscow, Odessa and the Baltic port cities. In 1913 he was the first to introduce the conveyor into the production process. In 1919, at the initiative of the Soviet Bureau in New York, Ford made a deal to sell Fordson tractors to Soviet Russia. Despite his hostile attitude towards Bolshevism, Ford sacrificed his political views in the name of achieving entrepreneurial success in Soviet Russia. The USSR has become the largest foreign buyer of Ford tractors. According to Henry Ford himself, his company supplied 85% of all trucks, cars and tractors to the USSR (in total, from 1921 to 1927 the USSR purchased more than 24 thousand Fordson tractors, hundreds of cars and trucks). On May 31, 1929, an agreement was signed with the Ford company on technical assistance to the Soviet Union in the construction of automobile plants for a period of 9 years. Nizhny Novgorod (the future Gorky Automobile Plant, GAZ) was chosen for the construction of a full cycle plant. According to the agreement, the production capacity of the plant was to ensure the production of 100 thousand trucks and cars annually; Soviet car builders could do an internship at the Ford plant in Dearborn, near Detroit. For its part, the Soviet government undertook to purchase Ford products for a total of 4 million dollars within 4 years. On February 1, 1930, the first Soviet "lorry" came out of the gates of Automobile Assembly Plant No. 1. In May 1931, a full cycle plant was laid near Nizhny Novgorod, and in January 1932 it began to produce products. In 1935, the agreement was terminated by mutual agreement, because. The USSR began to produce cars of its own production. In total, over the period from 1929 to 1936, contracts were signed between Soviet organizations and Ford for an amount exceeding 40 million dollars.
Before the outbreak of World War II, he became a fan of Hitler, published a newspaper in which anti-Semitic articles were printed, and in 1938 accepted an award from the Fuhrer. In 1936, together with his son Edsel (Edsel Bryant Ford), he created the Ford Foundation (Ford Foundation; currently the largest American philanthropic foundation; the fund's financial assets at the end of 1999 amounted to about 12 billion dollars). In 1945, Henry Ford stepped down as president of his corporation. In 1945, Henry Ford's grandson Henry II (Henry II), born in 1917, took over as president of the company. Henry Ford Sr. died at the age of 83 on April 7, 1947, in Dearborn.
Among Henry Ford's books are "My Life and Work" (My Life and Work, 1922, translated into Russian - 1924; until 1927 it was reprinted seven times in the USSR), "Today and Tomorrow" (Today and Tomorrow, 1926, translated into Russian language - 1927), "Moving Forward" (Moving Forward, 1931). Books written by Ford were repeatedly published and republished in the USSR, recommended to the leaders of Soviet industrial enterprises as a textbook and to university students as a textbook. In the USSR, in the series "The Life of Remarkable People", a book about Ford was published.
Before you is a book that has gone through more than a hundred editions around the world. It is considered to be a biography of Henry Ford, but it is rather a biography of his case. Ford's philosophy, which underlies the methods of management and organization of production, has become a socio-economic direction named after him. Today, Fordism is embedded in the strategies of thousands of businesses around the world. Henry talks about the motivation of workers and the management of the plant, the banking system and military orders - briefly but clearly. It is read not as the teachings of a “business shark”, but as a revelation of a simple guy who wants to do a job well.
* * *
The following excerpt from the book Henry Ford. My life. My Achievements (Henry Ford) provided by our book partner - the company LitRes.
Introduction
My guiding idea
Our country has just begun to develop; no matter what they say about our amazing successes, we barely plowed through the top cover. Despite this, our successes have been amazing enough. But if we compare what has been done with what remains to be done, all our successes turn into nothing. One has only to remember that more power is expended in plowing the land than in all the industrial enterprises of the country put together, and one immediately gets an idea of the possibilities that lie before us. And precisely now, when so many states are going through a process of fermentation, now, with the unrest reigning everywhere, the moment has apparently come when it is appropriate to recall something from the area of the tasks ahead in the light of the tasks already solved.
When one speaks of the growing power of machine and industry, the image of a cold, metallic world easily arises before us, in which trees, flowers, birds, grasslands are supplanted by the grandiose factories of a world of iron machines and human machines. I do not share this view. Moreover, I believe that if we do not learn how to use machines better, we will not have time to enjoy trees and birds, flowers and meadows.
In my opinion, we have done too much to frighten away the joy of life by thinking about the opposition of the concepts of "existence" and "sustainability". We waste so much time and energy that we have little left for the pleasures of life. Power and machinery, money and possessions are useful only insofar as they contribute to the freedom of life.. They are only a means to an end. For example, I look at cars that bear my name, not only as cars. If they were just that, I would have done something else. To me, they are clear evidence of a business theory that I hope is more than a business theory, namely, a theory whose goal is to create a source of joy out of the world. The fact of the extraordinary success of the Ford Automobile Society is significant in that it shows irrefutably how correct my theory has hitherto been. Only with this premise can I judge existing methods of production, finance, and society from the point of view of a man who is not enslaved by them.
If I pursued only selfish goals, I would not need to seek to change the established methods. If I thought only of acquisition, the present system would be excellent for me; she supplies me with money in abundance. But I remember the duty of service. The present system does not give the highest measure of productivity, for it promotes waste in all its forms; it robs many people of the product of their labour. She has no plan. It all depends on the degree of planning and expediency.
I have nothing against the general tendency to ridicule new ideas. It is better to be skeptical of all new ideas and demand proof of their correctness than to chase after every new idea in a state of constant thought cycle. Skepticism, coinciding with caution, is the compass of civilization. There is no idea that is good just because it is old, or bad because it is new; but if the old idea justified itself, then this is strong evidence in its favor. Ideas are valuable in themselves, but every idea is, after all, just an idea. The challenge is to put it into practice.
First of all, I want to prove that the ideas we apply can be applied everywhere, that they concern not only the field of cars or tractors, but, as it were, are part of a certain general code. I am firmly convinced that this code is quite natural, and I would like to prove this with such immutability that would result in the recognition of our ideas not as new, but as a natural code.
It is quite natural to work in the consciousness that happiness and well-being are obtained only by honest work. Human misfortunes are largely the result of an attempt to turn away from this natural path. I am not going to suggest anything that would go beyond the unconditional recognition of this natural principle. I start from the assumption that we have to work. The successes we have achieved so far are, in essence, the result of a certain logical realization: since we have to work, it is better to work smart and prudently; the better we work, the better we will be. That's what prescribes us, in my opinion, elementary, common human sense.
One of the first rules of caution teaches us to be on our guard and not to confuse reactionary actions with reasonable measures. We have just gone through a period of fireworks in every respect and have been inundated with programs and plans for idealistic progress. But we didn't go further than that. All together it looked like a rally, but not like a progressive movement. I had to hear a lot of beautiful things; but when we got home, we discovered that the fire in the hearth had gone out. Reactionaries usually take advantage of the depression that follows such periods and begin to refer to the "good old days" - mostly filled with the worst old abuses - and since they have neither vision nor imagination, they pass for "practical people" on occasion. ". Their return to power is often hailed as a return to common sense.
The main functions are agriculture, industry and transport. Without them, social life is impossible. They hold the world together. The cultivation of the land, the manufacture and distribution of commodities, are as primitive as human needs, and yet more vital than anything. They are the quintessence of physical life. If they die, then public life will end.
Any amount of work. Business is nothing but work. On the contrary, speculation in ready-made products has nothing to do with business - it means nothing more and nothing less than a more decent form of theft, which cannot be eradicated by legislation. In general, little can be achieved by legislation: it is never constructive. It is incapable of going beyond the limits of police power, and therefore it is a waste of time to expect from our government agencies in Washington or in the main cities of the states what they cannot do. As long as we expect legislation to cure poverty and remove privilege from the world, we are destined to see poverty grow and privilege multiply. We've relied on Washington for too long, and we've got too many legislators—although they don't have as much freedom in our country as they do in other countries—but they attribute to laws a power they don't have.
If you inspire a country, for example ours, that Washington is heaven, where omnipotence and omniscience sit on thrones above the clouds, then the country begins to fall into dependence, which does not promise anything good in the future. Help will come not from Washington, but from ourselves; moreover, we ourselves may be able to help Washington, as a kind of center where the fruits of our labors are concentrated for their further distribution for the common good. We can help the government, not the government to us.
The motto “Less administrative spirit in business life and more business spirit in administration” is very good, not only because it is useful both in business and in government, but also because it is useful to the people. The United States was not created for business reasons. A declaration of independence is not a commercial document, and the constitution of the United States is not a catalog of goods. The United States is a country, government and economic life is only a means to give value to the life of the people. The government is only his servant and must always remain so. As soon as the people become an appendage to the government, the law of retribution comes into force, for such a ratio is unnatural, immoral and inhuman. It is impossible to do without business life and government. Both, playing a service role, are as necessary as water and bread; but, starting to rule, they go against the natural order. Taking care of the well-being of the country is the duty of each of us. Only under this condition will the matter be set up correctly and reliably. Promises cost nothing to the government, but it is not able to fulfill them. True, governments can juggle currency as they did in Europe (and as financiers around the world still do and will do as long as the net income gets into their pocket); at the same time, a lot of solemn nonsense dangles. Meanwhile, work, and only work, can create value. Deep down everyone knows this.
It is highly unbelievable that such an intelligent people as ours would be able to stifle the basic processes of economic life. Most people feel instinctively, without even realizing it, that money is not wealth. Vulgar theories that promise everything to everyone and demand nothing are immediately rejected by the instinct of the ordinary person, even when he is not able to logically comprehend such an attitude towards them. He knows they are false, and that is enough. The present order, in spite of its clumsiness, frequent blunders, and various shortcomings, has the advantage over any other that it functions. Undoubtedly, the current order will gradually pass into another, and another order will also function, but not so much on its own, as depending on the content invested in it by people. Is our system correct? Of course, wrong, in a thousand ways. Heavy? Yes! From the point of view of law and reason, it should have collapsed long ago. But she's holding on.
The economic principle is work. Labor is a human element that turns the fruitful seasons to its advantage. Human labor created from the harvest season what it has become today. The economic principle says: "Each of us works on a material that is not created by us and which we cannot create, on a material that is given to us by nature."
The moral principle is the right of a person to his work. This right finds various forms of expression. The man who has earned his bread has also earned the right to it. If another person steals this bread from him, he steals from him more than bread, steals a sacred human right.
If we cannot produce, we cannot possess. The capitalists who have become such through the trade in money are a temporary, inevitable evil. They may not even be evil if their money is re-injected into production. But if their money is used to hinder distribution, to erect barriers between consumer and producer, then they are indeed pests whose existence will cease as soon as money is better adapted to labor relations. And this will happen when everyone comes to the realization that only work, one work leads to the right path to health, wealth and happiness.
There is no reason why a person who wants to work should not be able to work and receive full compensation for his work. In the same way, there is no reason why a person who is able to work, but does not want to, should not also receive full compensation for what he has done. Under all circumstances, he must be given the opportunity to receive from society what he himself gave to society. If he has given nothing to society, then he has nothing to demand from society. Let him be given the freedom to die of hunger. By arguing that everyone should have more than he actually deserves - just because some get more than they are rightfully entitled to - we will not get far.
There can be no statement more absurd and more harmful to mankind than that all men are equal.
In nature, no two objects are absolutely equal. We build our machines only with interchangeable parts. All these parts are similar to each other in the way that they can only be similar when chemical analysis, the most accurate instruments and the most accurate workmanship are used. There is therefore no need for trials. At the sight of two Fords, so similar in appearance to each other that no one can distinguish them, and with parts so similar that they can be put one in the place of the other, it involuntarily comes to mind that they are really the same. But this is by no means the case. They are different at work. We have people who have driven hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Ford cars, and they claim that no two cars are exactly alike; that if they drive a new car for an hour or less, and this car is then placed in a row of other cars, which they also tested for an hour under the same conditions, they, although they will not be able to distinguish individual cars by appearance, will still distinguish them everywhere.
So far, I have been talking about various subjects in general: let's move on to specific examples. Each one should be placed in such a way that the scale of his life is in due proportion to the services he renders to society. It is timely to say a few words on this subject, because we have just gone through a period when, in relation to most people, the question of the amount of their services was in the background. We were well on our way to reaching the point where no one is asking for these services anymore. Checks arrived automatically. Formerly the customer honored the seller with his orders; in the future, relations changed, and the seller began to honor the client by fulfilling his orders. In business life, this is evil. Every monopoly and every pursuit of profit is evil. It is invariably harmful for an enterprise if there is no need to strain. An enterprise is never so great as when, like a chicken, it has to look for part of its nutrition itself. Everything was too easy in business life. The principle of a definite, real correspondence between a value and its equivalent has been shaken. There was no need to think about customer satisfaction. In certain circles, even a kind of tendency to drive the public to hell prevailed. Some referred to this state as "the heyday of business life." But this by no means meant flourishing. It was just an unnecessary pursuit of money that had nothing to do with business life.
If you don't always have a goal in front of you, it's very easy to overload yourself with money and then, in your incessant effort to make more money, completely forget about the need to supply the public with what they really want. Doing business on the basis of pure profit is an enterprise of the highest degree of risk. It is a kind of gambling that runs unevenly and is rarely kept for more than a few years. The task of the enterprise is to produce for consumption, and not for profit or speculation. And the condition for such production is that its products be of good quality and cheap, that these products serve the benefit of the people, and not just one producer. If the question of money is considered in a false perspective, then the products are falsified in favor of the manufacturer.
The producer's well-being ultimately also depends on the benefits he brings to the people. True, for some time he can conduct his affairs not badly, serving only himself. But this is not for long. As soon as the people realize that the manufacturer does not serve them, and its end is not far off. During the rise of the war, manufacturers were concerned mainly with serving themselves. But as soon as the people saw this, many of them came to an end. These people claimed that they fell into a period of "depression". But that was not the case. They simply tried, armed with ignorance, to fight common sense, and such a policy never succeeds. Greed for money is the surest way not to get money. But if you serve for the sake of service itself, for the sake of satisfaction, which is given by the consciousness of the rightness of the cause, then money itself appears in abundance.
Money, quite naturally, is obtained as a result of useful activity. Having money is absolutely essential. But we must not forget at the same time that the purpose of money is not idleness, but the multiplication of funds for useful service. For me personally, there is nothing more disgusting than an idle life. None of us are entitled to it. There is no place for parasites in civilization. All kinds of projects for the destruction of money only lead to a complication of the issue, since it is impossible to do without exchange signs. Of course, it remains in great doubt whether our current monetary system provides a sound basis for exchange. This is a question that I will touch upon more closely in one of the following chapters. My main objection to the current monetary system is that it is often treated as an end in itself. And under this condition, in many respects it slows down production, instead of facilitating it.
My goal is simplicity. In general, because people have so little and the satisfaction of the basic necessities of life (not to mention the luxury to which, in my opinion, everyone has a certain right) is so expensive that almost everything we produce is much more complicated than it needs to be. Our clothes, dwellings, apartment furnishings - everything could be much simpler and at the same time more beautiful. This is because all objects in the past were made in a certain way, and today's manufacturers follow the beaten path.
By this I do not mean to say that we must go to the other extreme. There is absolutely no need for this. It is not at all necessary that our dress should consist of a bag with a hole for the head to stick through. True, in this case it would be easy to manufacture, but it would be extremely impractical. A blanket is not a masterpiece of tailoring, but none of us would have worked much if we walked around, like the Indians, in blankets. True simplicity is associated with understanding the practical and expedient. The disadvantage of all radical reforms is that they want to change a person and adapt him to certain subjects. I believe that attempts to introduce “reform” dress for women invariably come from ugly persons who want other women to be ugly. In other words, everything happens topsy-turvy. You should take something that has proven its suitability and eliminate everything superfluous in it. This primarily applies to shoes, clothing, houses, cars, railroads, steamships, aircraft. By eliminating redundant parts and simplifying the necessary ones, we also eliminate unnecessary production costs. The logic is simple. But, oddly enough, the process most often begins with a reduction in the cost of production, and not with a simplification of the fabricated product. We must start from the product itself. It is important first of all to investigate whether it is really as good as it should be - does it fulfill its purpose to the maximum extent? Then - is the material used the best possible or only the most expensive? And finally - does it allow for simplifications in design and reduction in weight? Etc.
Excess weight is as meaningless in any object as the badge on a coachman's hat - perhaps even more meaningless. The badge may, after all, serve for identification, while being overweight means only an extra waste of strength. It is a mystery to me what the mixture of gravity and force is based on. Everything is very good in a piling woman, but why put extra weight in motion when nothing is achieved by this? Why burden a car designed for transport with a special weight? Why not transfer excess weight to the load that is transported by the machine? Fat people can't run as fast as thin people, and we make most of our transport vehicles so bulky, as if dead weight and volume increase speed! Poverty largely comes from dragging dead weights.
We're still going to make a lot of progress in eliminating excess weight, for example with respect to wood-based materials. Wood is an excellent material for some parts, although very uneconomical. The wood in a Ford car contains about 30 pounds of water. Undoubtedly, improvements are possible here. There must be a means by which the same power and elasticity will be achieved without excess weight. It's the same with a thousand other things.
The farmer makes his day's work too burdensome. In my opinion, the average farmer spends no more than five percent of his energy on really useful work. If a factory were built on the model of an ordinary farm, it would have to be overcrowded with workers. The worst factory in Europe is hardly as badly organized as the average peasant farm. Mechanical energy and electricity are almost never used. Not only is everything done by hand, but in most cases no attention is even paid to expedient organization. During the working day, the farmer probably climbs up and down the rickety ladder a dozen times. He will struggle for years in a row, carrying water, instead of laying a meter or two of water pipe. If there is a need for additional work, then his first thought is to hire additional workers. He considers it a luxury to spend money on improvements. That is why the products of agriculture, even at the lowest prices, are still too expensive, and the income of the farmer, under the most favorable conditions, is negligible. The predatory waste of time and effort is the cause of high prices and low earnings.
On my own farm in Dearborn, everything is done by machines. But although in many respects limits have been placed on the waste of forces, we are still far from a truly economic economy. Until now, we have not been able to devote attention to this issue continuously for 5-10 years in order to establish what still needs to be implemented. There is more to be done than has been done. And yet we consistently received, regardless of market prices, an excellent income. We are not farmers on our farm, but industrialists. As soon as the farmer learns to look upon himself as an industrialist, with all the latter's aversion to wastefulness in material and labor, the prices of agricultural products will fall so low and incomes will rise so much that there is enough for everyone to live, and agriculture will acquire the reputation of the least risky and most rewarding profession.
In insufficient acquaintance with the processes and the true essence of the profession, as well as with the best forms of its organization, lies the reason for the low profitability of agriculture. But everything that will be organized according to the model of agriculture is doomed to profitlessness. The farmer hopes for happiness and for his ancestors. He has no idea about the economy of production and marketing. The manufacturer, who knew nothing about the economy of production and sales, would not have lasted long. That the farmer is holding on is only proof of how marvelously profitable agriculture itself is. An extremely simple means of achieving cheap and significant production in both industrial and agricultural fields, and production of this kind means that there is enough for everyone. But the worst thing is that everywhere there is a tendency to complicate even the simplest things. Here, for example, the so-called "improvements".
When it comes to improvements, a change in the product is usually designed. An "improved" product is one that has undergone a change. My understanding of the concept of "improvement" is completely different. I consider it generally wrong to start production until the product itself has been improved. This, of course, does not mean that changes should never be made to the fabrication. I only consider it more economical to take up production experience only when I have complete confidence in the good quality and suitability of calculations and material. If such confidence is not obtained upon closer examination, then one should calmly continue research until certainty appears. Production must come from the product itself. Factory, organization, marketing and financial considerations themselves adapt to the fabricated product. In this way, the chisel of the enterprise is sharpened, and in the end it turns out that time has been won. Forcing a product without prior confidence in the product itself has been the hidden cause of many, many disasters. How many people seem to believe that the most important thing is the organization of the factory, sales, financial resources, business management. The most important thing is the product itself, and any forcing of production before the product has been perfected is a waste of energy. Twelve years passed before I completed the Model T, which satisfies me in every way, the same one that is now famous as a Ford car. We didn't even try to start production in the proper sense at the beginning until we got the real product. This latter has not undergone significant changes since then.
We are constantly experimenting with new ideas. Driving near Dearborn, you can meet all kinds of Ford cars. These are testing machines, not new models. I don't ignore any good idea, but I shy away from deciding immediately if it's really good. If the idea turns out to be really good, or at least opens up new possibilities, then I am in favor of testing it in every possible way. But these tests are still infinitely far from change. While most manufacturers are more willing to change the product than the methods of its production, we use just the opposite method.
We have made a number of significant changes in our production methods. There is never a stalemate here. It seems to me that since we built our first car according to the current model, not one of the previous devices has remained unchanged. That is the reason for the cheapness of our production. Those small changes that are introduced in our cars are intended to improve ride comfort or increase power. The materials used in production change, of course, as we learn to understand materials.
In the same way, we want to protect ourselves from interruptions in production or from the need to raise prices due to the possible lack of any individual materials. In these types, we have a replacement material for almost all parts. For example, of all steel grades, vanadium is the most widely used. The greatest strength is combined in it with a minimum weight; but we would be nothing but bad businessmen if we made our whole future dependent on the possibility of obtaining vanadium steel. So we found a metal to replace it. All varieties of ours have become quite peculiar, but for each individual variety we have at least one replacement, and even several, and all have been tried and all have proved to be suitable. The same can be said about all varieties of our materials, as well as about all individual parts. At first we made only a few parts ourselves, and we didn't make motors at all. At the present time we make the motors ourselves, as well as almost all the parts, because it is cheaper. We also do this so that we are not affected by market crises and so that foreign manufacturers do not paralyze us with their inability to deliver what we need. During the war, glass prices rose to dizzying heights. We were among the first ranks of consumers. At present, we have started the construction of our own glass factory. If we had expended all our energy on a change in the product, we would not have gone far, but since we did not make any changes in the product, we were able to concentrate all our efforts on improving the manufacturing methods.
The most important part of a chisel is the point. Our enterprise is primarily based on this idea. In a chisel, not so much depends on the fineness of the workmanship or the quality of the steel and the quality factor of the forging, if there is no point in it, then this is not a chisel, but just a piece of metal. In other words, what matters is the real, not the imaginary benefit. What is the point of hitting with a blunt chisel with great effort, if a light blow with a sharpened chisel does the same job? The chisel exists to cut down, not to pound. Hitting is just a side effect. So, if we want to work, why not concentrate our will on the work and do it in the shortest way? The sharp point in industrial life is the line along which the product of production comes into contact with the consumer. A defective product is a product with a blunt point. It takes a lot of extra power to push it through. The spikes in a factory enterprise are man and machine doing work together. If the person is not suitable, then the machine is not able to do the job correctly, and vice versa. To demand that more force be expended on this or that work than is absolutely necessary is to be wasteful.
So, the essence of my idea is that wastefulness and greed inhibit true productivity. But extravagance and greed are by no means inevitable evils. Extravagance springs mostly from an insufficiently conscientious attitude towards our actions, or from a careless execution of them. Greed is a kind of myopia. My goal was to produce with the minimum expenditure of material and manpower and to sell at the minimum profit, and for the total profit I relied on the size of the sale. In the same way, my goal in the process of such production is to give employees the maximum wage from the profit, in other words, to communicate the maximum purchasing power. And since this method also leads to minimal costs, and since we sell with a minimum of profit, we are able to bring our product into line with purchasing power. The company we founded is really profitable. And that's why I want to talk about it. The main principles of our production are:
1. Do not be afraid of the future and do not respect the past. Whoever is afraid of the future, that is, of failures, he himself limits the scope of his activities. Failure only gives you an excuse to start again and smarter. Honest failure is not shameful; disgraceful fear of failure. The past is useful only in the sense that it shows us the ways and means to development.
2. Pay no attention to the competition. Let the one who does the job best do the work. An attempt to upset someone's affairs is a crime, because it means an attempt to upset the life of another person in the pursuit of profit and establish the rule of force instead of sound reason.
3. Put work for the common good above profit. No business can survive without profit. Essentially, there is nothing wrong with profit. A well-established enterprise, while bringing great benefits, should and will bring a large income. But profitability should result from useful work, and not lie at its basis.
4. Producing does not mean buying cheap and selling expensive. Rather, it means buying raw materials at similar prices and converting them, at as little extra cost as possible, into a good product, which is then distributed to the consumers. To gamble, to speculate and to act dishonestly means to impede only the specified process.
The following chapters will show how it all came about, to what results it led, and what its significance was for society as a whole.
Translated from English E.A.Bakusheva by edition:
MY LIFE & WORK by Henry Ford in collaboration with Samuel Crowther. – London: William Heinemann Ltd.
Introduction
Fundamental Idea
Today, our country is just beginning to move along the path of development - with all the talk of amazing progress, we are taking no more than the first timid steps. Of course, we have made amazing progress, but if we compare what has already been done with what we still have to do, past achievements will seem completely insignificant. Only when you realize that today more energy is spent on plowing the land than is used in the entire industrial sector, you gradually begin to understand how many opportunities lie ahead. And today, when the world is so turbulent, it is the right time to offer new solutions and ideas in the light of what has already been achieved.
At the words “growing power”, “machines” and “industry”, a picture of the cold world of metal and gigantic plants and factories is inevitably drawn, destroying trees, flowers, birds and green fields. It immediately seems to be a struggle between people and machines, more like robots. I must say that I cannot agree with all this. I am sure that until we make friends with technology, until we learn how to use it correctly, until we can more accurately represent the essence of the technical part of our life, we will not have time and opportunity to enjoy trees, birds, flowers and green fields.
It seems to me that by dividing the line between life and the provision of livelihood, we have deprived ourselves of many pleasant things and pleasures. We waste so much time and energy that there is nothing left for joy. Power and technology, money and goods are valuable and useful only insofar as they give a person freedom. They are only means to an end. For example, cars that bear my name are not just cars for me. If it was only them, I would be doing something else. For me, my cars are direct evidence of the correctness of business theory, which, I hope, is something more than just business theory. This theory is an attempt to make our world a better place. The extraordinary commercial success of the Ford Motor Company is significant only because it clearly demonstrates the validity and correctness of the theory. Exclusively in this context, I can criticize the dominant system of production, the organization of money and society from the point of view of a person who is not enslaved by them.
If I proceeded only from selfish motives, I would not ask for changes, I am quite satisfied with the current state of affairs. If I thought only of acquisition, then the modern system would seem to me almost ideal: it provided me with money in abundance. But I want to be useful. The current system provides limited opportunities for this, encouraging empty, unnecessary spending. Such a system leads nowhere. It's all about proper planning and expediency.
I'm not trying to argue with the general trend of being skeptical of new ideas. It is better to doubt new ideas and see for yourself their validity than to chase them with hope in a constant cycle of thoughts. Skepticism, if by it we mean caution, is the balance that keeps civilization in balance. Much of today's thorny problems are the result of thoughtlessly picking up new ideas without carefully considering how good they are. Just as an idea is old it is not necessarily good, just as a new idea need not be bad; but if the old idea produces excellent results, what further evidence is needed? Ideas themselves are incredibly important and valuable, but they are just ideas. Almost anyone can come up with something. Turning an idea into reality, into a concrete product, is what really matters.
Today, I am most interested in demonstrating the wide application that can be found in the ideas that are embodied in our work. They are not tied exclusively to the field of automobile or tractor construction, in one way or another they form the nature of a universal law. I am absolutely sure that this is a natural law, and therefore I want to present it in such detail and clearly so that it is accepted not as a new idea, but precisely as a natural law.
Working is a perfectly natural occupation, and it is absolutely correct to admit that wealth and happiness are acquired only by hard work. All human troubles stem from attempts to avoid such a natural state of affairs. I can offer you nothing but to accept this principle and agree with it. We must work - for me this truth is indisputable. We owe all achievements and successes to the fulfillment of the following requirement: if we must work, then work efficiently, intelligently and carefully; the better we work, the richer we become. All of the above I refer to the manifestation of elementary common sense.
I cannot call myself a reformer. I think people are too keen on reforms and pay undeservedly much attention to it. There are two types of reformers. Both of them cause a lot of inconvenience. The man who calls himself a reformer seeks destruction and destruction. If suddenly his button does not fall into the loop, he is able to tear his shirt to shreds. It would never occur to him to enlarge the loop. Such a reformer never knows what he is doing and why. Experience and reforms are incompatible. The reformer does not know how to face the facts. He always disowns them.
After 1914, a huge number of people stocked up with completely new intellectual baggage. Many are just now beginning to really think for the first time. They open their eyes wide, realizing the world they live in. Then, with a slight thrill of their own independence, they come to the conclusion that this world can be looked at with a critical eye. And suddenly it turns out that there are many shortcomings in the world. The ecstasy of the influence and power of criticizing the social system - which is the inalienable right of any person - at first prevents a sober assessment of events and reality. The young, inexperienced critic does not yet possess the skill of objective judgment. He always strives to eliminate the old order and establish a new one. As is known, it was possible to create its own new world in Russia. On the example of this country, you can study the actions of those who want to change the world. Russia has shown us that it is not the majority but the minority that defines and supports destructive policies. We also see that if people make social laws bypassing the natural laws, Nature imposes a stronger veto on such laws than the veto imposed by kings. Nature has vetoed the entire Soviet Republic. For she tried to trample on the laws of Nature. It denied people the right to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Some say that “Russia will have to learn how to work,” but that is not the point at all. The Russians work hard enough, but their work is worth nothing. This is not free labor. In the United States, the working day is eight hours long, while in Russia people work twelve to fourteen hours a day. In the United States, if a worker wishes to take a day or a week off, no one will prevent him from doing so. In Soviet Russia the workers go to work whether they like it or not. Civic freedom has dissolved into the monotony of prison discipline, in which everyone is cut with the same brush. This is nothing but slavery. Freedom is the right to work a reasonable amount of time and receive adequate remuneration for your work to ensure a decent standard of living, the right to be able to manage your own life. The above and many other aspects of freedom constitute real, idealistic Freedom. More simple manifestations of freedom permeate the daily life of each of us.
Without experience and foresight, Russia will remain in one place. As soon as factories and plants were run by committees, industry began to decline; there were few deeds, and too many words and disputes. After the skilled workers were on the street, thousands of tons of precious raw materials simply rotted and deteriorated. With their speeches, fanatics have brought the people to a hungry existence. Now the Soviets are offering big money to engineers, managers, foremen and leaders, only to get them back to their original positions. The Bolsheviks desperately need the brains and experience they themselves so ruthlessly dealt with in the recent past. All that this “reform” did for Russia was to block the path of progress and destroy production.
There is a certain malevolent element thriving in this country, trying to establish a strong position between those who work with their hands and those who think and plan for these workers. The same forces that pulled experience, abilities and intelligence from Russia are trying to sow discord and prejudice in our country as well.
We must not allow the destroyer, the hater of a happy humanity, to divide our nation. America's strength is in unity—and in freedom.
On the other hand, we can observe the second type of reformer who does not recognize himself as such. In many ways, he is like a radical reformer who has no experience and does not seek development. The same type has a wonderful experience, only it does not bring him any benefit. I'm talking about reactionaries. They will probably be surprised to find themselves on the same level as the Bolsheviks. Such people dream of returning to the old order, not because this order was better, but because they are sure that they know it well.
One group of people seeks to destroy the whole world to the ground and build a new one in its place. The second believes that the world is good as it is, and therefore it is better to leave everything as it was, that is, to allow the world to decline. Both the first and second positions are rooted in the same thing - in ignoring the obvious. Of course, it is not difficult to destroy the world, but it is impossible to build a new one. You can prevent the world from moving forward along the path of progress, but you cannot prevent it from returning to its previous state - to degrade. It is foolish to expect that if everything is turned upside down, then everyone will immediately be able to get their own big piece of the pie. It is also unreasonable to assume that astronomical profits can be made by slowing down development. The main problem lies in the fact that both reformers and reactionaries fence themselves off from reality - from the fundamental principles, from primary industries.
One of the rules of caution is to be completely sure that we do not take reactionary actions for the manifestations of common sense. We have experienced a period of explosive ideas and utopian visions of future ideal progress. But the matter did not progress beyond this. It was more like marking time than moving forward. The words sounded so sweet and promising, but when we returned home, we found that the enthusiasm had faded. Reactionaries often take advantage of the depression and pessimism that follows such periods. They promise a return to the "good old days", which in fact means all the same old abuses and unfoundedness. And since such people are completely devoid of foresight and insight, they quite pass for "practical people." Their return to power is solemnly formalized as the return of common sense.
The primary industries are agriculture, industry and transport. The life of society without them is unthinkable, the world rests on them. The cultivation of the soil and the cultivation of crops, the manufacture of commodities and their movement from one place to another, are as primitive as human needs, and at the same time nothing more urgent can be conceived. They are the essence of material existence. If they are removed, the life of society will also freeze. It is impossible not to admit that not everything is ideal in the modern world under the existing system, but if you do not shake the foundations, you can hope for improvements. The greatest misconception is that these foundations can be shaken. Any society is built on cultivation, production and transportation. If agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation survive, the world will be able to survive any economic or social upheaval. By doing our job, we serve the world and society.
There is still no end to the work. Business is nothing more than a job. Speculation in finished goods is not a business, it is a more or less decent form of theft. But you can't ban it by law. Laws don't do much at all. They do not carry anything constructive. They are incapable of rising above police power, and therefore hoping that state capitals or Washington will do what the law is not supposed to do is just a waste of time. As long as we rely on legislation to lift us out of poverty or prohibit special rights and privileges, so long will poverty continue to spread and privileges grow. We have prayed enough to Washington, and there are enough lawmakers in our country (although, it should be noted, not as many as in other countries) to assure us that the laws will protect what they should not protect.
If you force the whole country to think that Washington is a kind of paradise, behind the clouds of which dwells omniscience and omnipotence, the country will gradually wean itself from independent thinking, which in itself cannot but disturb. Our salvation is not in Washington, our salvation is in ourselves; this aid, however, may be directed to Washington - a kind of distribution center - where all our efforts will be accumulated for the common good. We are in a position to assist the government; the government is unable to help us.
The motto “Less government in business and more business in government” is a good motto not only for business or government, but also for ordinary citizens. Business is not the reason the United States was founded. The Declaration of Independence is not the charter of an enterprise, and the Constitution is not a contract. The United States—territory, people, government, and business—is just the means by which people's lives become meaningful. The government is only a servant of the people and should never aim for more. As soon as people become an appendage of the government, immediate retribution follows, since such relations are abnormal, immoral and contrary to natural principles. We cannot imagine our life without business, just as we cannot imagine it without government; they are necessary as servants, like water or grain; as hosts, they disrupt the natural order.
The well-being of the country depends directly on us as individual citizens. This is the optimal order, that's how it should be. The government may promise us mountains of gold, but words remain words. They can juggle currencies, as is done in Europe (and as is done by financiers around the world, since such tricks bring them profit), behind the guise of solemn but empty chatter. Labor and only labor creates and brings concrete results - and each of us recognizes this in the depths of our souls.
It is absolutely unbelievable that such an intelligent people as ours should harm the dominant processes of economic life. Most people are well aware that free cheese is only found in a mousetrap. Most people feel - even if they don't know it - that money is not wealth. Theories that have set the teeth on edge, promising everyone everything that he wants, but demanding nothing in return, are instantly rejected by the average person on an instinctive level, even if he is not always able to give strong arguments against such theories. He just knows they are false. And that's enough. The existing order, inflexible, often stupid and in many ways imperfect, has one advantage over all others - it lives and functions. Without any doubt, the current order will gradually evolve into a different one, and this new order will also live and function, but the reason for this will not be its essence, but what people will bring into it. The reason for the collapse of Bolshevism lies not in economic failures. It makes no difference whether the industry is in the hands of private individuals or the state; it does not matter what the payments to workers are called - salaries or dividends; It is absolutely immaterial whether a person is prescribed how to eat, dress and where to live, or whether he is allowed to eat, dress and live as he wants. It's just a matter of details. The unviability of Bolshevism is due to excessive excitement and fuss about just such details. Bolshevism failed because it was both unnatural and immoral at the same time. Our system has stood the test. Is she perfect? Of course not, no way! Too bulky? Undoubtedly. By all accounts, it looks like it should have collapsed a long time ago. But this does not happen, since this system is consistent with certain economic and moral foundations.
The basis of business is labor. Labor is a human element, thanks to which the fruitful seasons bring rich fruits. Labor has made the harvest season what it is now. Economic activity is based on this: each of us works with such material that a person could not create and does not create, but which is bestowed on him by Nature itself.
The moral basis is the human right to work. This right is described in different ways. Sometimes it is called "ownership", sometimes it is hidden behind the call: "Do not steal." It is the right of ownership that makes theft a crime. If a person has earned his daily bread, then he has every right to it. When someone steals this bread, he is stealing more than just food, he is stealing a sacred human right.
If we can't produce, we can't own - it's true, some argue that everything we produce is only for the capitalists. Capitalists, who become such because they provide the best conditions for production, are the basis of society. In fact, they don't own anything. They only manage property for the benefit of others. Capitalists who achieve this status through monetary manipulation are a temporary necessary evil. If they support production with their money, then they cannot even be called evil. But if their money is used to hinder distribution—to erect barriers between producer and consumer—these capitalists are bad for the country and they will leave the arena when the money is better suited for the job. And money will be better suited for work when people fully realize that happiness, wealth and health are the inevitable result of work and only work.
There is no reason why a person who is ready to work should not work and receive appropriate remuneration for his work. In the same way, there is no reason why a person who can, but does not want to work, should not receive what he deserves from society. Without a doubt, it is necessary to allow such a person to take from society as much as he has invested in it. If his contribution is zero, then he receives accordingly. Everyone should have a choice - to die of hunger or not. We won't go far, foaming at the mouth, arguing that every person should have more than they deserve, simply because some people do have more than they deserve.
The most absurd and harmful statement is the statement about the equality of all people. It is clear that people are not equal, and therefore any democratic idea that seeks to equalize everyone is nothing more than an attempt to slow down progress. People cannot be equally useful. Those who are endowed with great abilities are much less than those who do not. However, a crowd of less gifted people can overthrow a small number of strong and talented people without realizing that they are digging a hole for themselves. It is people endowed with great abilities who are at the head of society and do everything possible to make life easier for the rest of its members.
The concept of democracy, which justifies and covers up the lowering of the level of abilities with its name, contributes to unnecessary, empty losses for society. In nature, no two things are the same. We design our vehicles so that all parts are interchangeable and virtually identical, as far as the most precise machinery and the most skilled workers can make them so. And no testing is required. The two Fords next to each other seem to be exactly the same, so much the same that you can take parts out of one car and put them on another, and so it seems that they are in fact exactly the same. But it is not so. They behave differently on the road. We have people who run hundreds, and in some cases thousands of cars, and all unanimously declare that no two cars are exactly the same. They admit that if they were to drive a new Ford for an hour, and then they put this car among other new Fords that they also tested for an hour, they would never recognize the car by its appearance, but would recognize him, sitting behind the wheel.
So far, I have spoken in general terms. Now I would like to be more specific. One should not deny a person the right to live at a level corresponding to the benefit he brings. Now is the right time to raise this issue, because until recently, few people cared about the benefits to society. We were moving towards an order in which no one bothered himself with thoughts about costs and benefits. Checks rained down like from a cornucopia. If earlier the buyer rendered a service to the seller by purchasing goods from him, now the situation has changed, and the seller is already honoring the buyer by fulfilling his orders. In business, this is unacceptable. Monopoly leads to the death of a business. Speculation and the pursuit of profit is a disaster for business. If a person does not take active actions and does not make efforts, he will never succeed in business. Any enterprise will only become healthier when, like a chicken, it digs the ground in search of food. After all, before everything was too easy, customers did not need to please. In many cases, there has been complete disrespect and disregard for customers. This is absolutely unacceptable in business. Some have called this outlandish phenomenon "prosperity." This is not prosperity, but a useless pursuit of profit that does not correspond to real business.
If you do not have a clear goal and a specific plan in front of you, you can easily make a fortune, and then, in a fit of desire to make even more money, safely forget that you need to sell what people want to buy. A business based on an unbridled desire to get rich, like a castle built on sand. It is a risky and dangerous game, and few of its participants last more than a few years. This is the essence and meaning of business - to produce for consumption, and not for speculation or lining your pockets. Production for consumption implies the following: the products produced are of high quality and low price, while it must be useful not only to the manufacturer, but also to the buyer. If the purpose of money is perverted, then the purpose of production is perverted to please the producer.
The well-being of the producer depends on the buyers. For a while, he can probably look well, indulging his own needs, but this seems more like a happy accident; when the truth is revealed to people and they realize that the manufacturer does not care about their wishes and needs, its end is obvious. During the period of the rapid prosperity of the economy, all the forces of the producers were thrown into how to profit and extract the maximum benefit for themselves, but when the people realized what was happening, many producers came to an end. They were justified by a "streak of failures", "a period of depression". But it is not so. They simply tried to pass off nonsense as common sense - which, of course, could not succeed by definition. Greed is not the surest path to wealth. But when a man serves for the sake of service, for the sake of obtaining satisfaction from the work that he considers necessary, then money will naturally appear in abundance.
Money is the natural result of service. And you can't do without money. But we should not forget that the purpose of money is not idleness and carelessness, but the opportunity to multiply good deeds. Nothing disgusts me so much as inaction and aimless existence. None of us has the right to idleness; idlers have no place in our world. Any system that aims at the abolition of money only complicates the situation, because people need to have some kind of calculation criterion. Whether the current monetary system is a sound basis for exchanges is a moot point. And I will focus on it in one of the chapters. I see a serious shortcoming of the currently functioning monetary system in this: it begins to exist on its own, thus slowing down production, and not facilitating it.
I vote for simplicity. Why, in general, do people have so little and have to pay huge sums of money for the bare necessities (not to mention some luxuries that I think everyone is entitled to)? Because practically everything we produce is much more complex than it could be. Clothes, food, furniture - everything could be simpler without being, by the way, less attractive. This is just how it has been done since time immemorial, and it never occurs to anyone that it is high time to change something.
Do not take my words literally and fall into another extreme. There is no need for this. It is not necessary to wear a bag with a hole for the head. It is, of course, easy to make, but not very comfortable to wear. It doesn't take much effort to sew a blanket, but I don't think we'd get much done walking around in blankets like Indians. True simplicity is that which brings the greatest benefit and is most convenient in application. The problem with all radical reforms is that they call for fitting a person to certain ready-made things. I think that the authors of new fashion trends - in my opinion, absolutely terrible - are women who are unremarkable, and they make all other women so. It shouldn't be like that. The correct order is to start with what generally meets the requirements, and then cut off unnecessary and useless elements. This approach applies to everything - shoes, clothes, houses, technology, railroads, steamships and airplanes. By removing all unnecessary and simplifying all useful elements, we simultaneously reduce production costs. The logic is simple and obvious, but for some reason the process always starts with cheaper production instead of simplifying the product itself. You need to start with him. First of all, we should determine whether the product meets the main requirement - to the maximum extent to fulfill its purpose? Next, answer the following question: Were the best materials used, or just the most expensive? Third question: is it possible to simplify the design and reduce weight? Etc.
There is no more use in the excess weight of the product than in a coachman's cockade. I would even say even less useful. The cockade at least allows the driver to identify his hat, while being overweight means wasting energy. I can't imagine where the misconception came from that weight is tantamount to strength. The extra weight is understandable in a copra, but why is it in those things that are not designed to be hammered? Why extra weight for a car if its purpose is transportation? Why not transfer the extra weight to the load being transported by the machine? Fat people can't run as fast as thin people, but for some reason we design vehicles in such a way as if extra, "dead" weight increases speed! The cause of poverty is mainly the transportation of "dead" cargo.
Someday we will definitely figure out how to reduce the weight of manufactured products. Let's take a tree for example. For some parts of the car, wood is the best choice, but this material is extremely uneconomical. The wood we use in our cars contains thirty pounds of water. I am sure that it is possible to achieve better results. There must be a method by which the same power and elasticity can be achieved without the extra weight. And this applies to any production.
The farmer overcomplicates his daily work. I believe that on average, only five percent of the energy expended by the average farmer is truly channeled into the right direction. If it occurred to someone to equip the factory on the principle of an ordinary farm, it would not be crowded because of the huge concentration of workers. The worst factory in Europe is hardly as badly organized as the average farm. In farming, energy is used to a minimum, not only is everything done by hand, but there is also no elementary organization of labor. During the day the farmer has to go up and down rickety stairs more than once; he has been carrying water for years, instead of laying several meters of pipe. With more work to do, he can't think of anything better than to increase the workforce, while considering investing in improvements as an extra expense. And so the products of farm labor at the lowest price are still much more expensive than they could be. Extra actions - that is, wasted energy - are the cause of high prices and low incomes.
On my home farm in Dearborn, all labor is mechanized. We have managed to cut unnecessary costs, but we are still far from real savings. We have done too little; much more we have to do. And yet, regardless of market prices, we always made a wonderful income. On our farm, we are not farmers - we are industrialists. At the very moment when the farmer recognizes himself as an industrialist who does not allow waste either in materials or in human resources, he receives the products of his labor at surprisingly low prices, which both satisfy him and bring profit to sellers. Thanks to this, farming has every chance to take pride of place among the least dangerous and most profitable occupations.
