HENRY FORD ON WORK

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 922, 15 March 1930, Page 23

HENRY FORD ON WORK

“SALVATION OF THE RACE” BIG BUSINESS’S POWER “Thinking men know that work is the salvation of the race, morally, physically, socially. “Work does more than get us our Jiving, it gets us our life." The foregoing are among Mr. Henry Ford’s views on business and industry, as told to Mr. Samuel Crowther, and published in the “American Automobile.” “We now know," said Mr. Ford, “that business is -a science and that all other sciences are contributing to it. We are in the great age of transition from the drudgery of life to the enjoyment of life. “If the worker is to be able to buy what he makes —that is, if the wage motive is fully to be carried out—then *he large corporation is inevitable. “Putting the worker in a position to buy what he makes, of course, has its exceptions, and the thought applies principally to commodities. One would not expect the worker to buy a pipe organ, or a steamship, or a * skyscraper. As a worker, he would have no use for any of these things Bur he has use for good food, good clothing, good housing, and a reasonable amount of pleasure both for himself and for his family. “He cannot get these things by any political device or Through any bargaining organisation, such as a labour union, for goods are created neither by law. nor by bargaining—which,

j strangely enough, does not seem generally to be recognised. “The people have been taught to , fear the great corporation. They fear ! it partly because they do not under- ! stand it and partly because they are afraid of monopoly. Also, they have a fear of big money power, and confuse big business with big money power. Their thinking is many years behind the times. They are back in the days when a million dollars was a large sum of money, and when it • was taken as a fact that no naan can make or use a million dollars honestly. Whoever started that saying must have been a man of the narrowest vision, else he would have known that it is much easier to make money honestly than it is to make it dishonestly. “Now, let us remember that this is today and not yesterday or tomorrow. The world has always needed leadership. Yesterday the leadership was military and political. Neither mili- ! tary nor political leadership is creative. Business was called successful only when it took away something that someone else had already created. However, there is no use in quarrelling in the past. Times have improved and today political and military leadership cannot serve the people as well as industrial leadership. •‘There is a craving for prosperity ordained by law and it is entirely natural that there should be. Foi the . idea is rather general that the chief ! curse of life is to work for a living. Thinking men know that work is the : salvation of the race, morally, physically, socially. Work does more than get us our living it gets us our life. But somehow prosperity is mixed up

with high prices and wages can apparently (though not actually) be raised by law, it would seem that some law could substitute for work. “Everyone should know by this time ihat true prosperity is marked by a reduction of prices and that this is the only way in which prosperity can be made the normal condition and prevented from being merely spasmodic. Even in “hard times” we have every element of prosperity, so that ; the puzzle is that we should ever have to endure “hard times,” except through bad management of our affairs. The economic basis of prosperity is always present. But men must be led into prosperity. Industry must have generalship, and of a high order. The great corporation is the inevitable consequence of industrial leadership.” — K ——