David Lo Pun‘Henry Ford invented the 40 hour work week’ is a very strange way to say ‘Henry Ford claimed credit for changes he was forced to adopt after a hard fought campaign by the union members he despised’.
Love the ahistorical mythologising of the ‘good capitalist’ like Ford doubling their salary and ‘giving’ workers weekends occurred to him in an inspired dream rather than being the actual demands of the labour movement.
Or that Ford was the first to do these things when they were achieved by movements around the world *centuries* before.
Lightning Bjornsson* 
James K@helpmeskeletor Also, Ford paid his workers more because he wanted to intrusively monitor the personal lives of his workers. Most factory workers at the time were pretty casual, and would move from one factory to another as it pleased them. Ford's higher pay was a way to "lock in" his workers, making them more controllable.
Kavus@helpmeskeletor
Oof, until now I thought he actually was a good one. Thanks for getting the word out!
Oof, until now I thought he actually was a good one. Thanks for getting the word out!
Chuck@Kavus @helpmeskeletor alas, definitely not. He was a fascist, a Nazi collaborator, and a hardcore anti-semite. I'd offer links, but this is one of those topics that's so incredibly productive to search with his name and above terms that a link doesn't do it justice.
Brosephine Wires@ATurnOfTheNut @Kavus @helpmeskeletor
Don’t miss out on the opening editor’s note from this 2019 story— you’ll probably want to follow that additional side story about how the mayor of Dearborn fired the editor of a government-funded historical magazine and stopped distribution of a published edition of the quarterly magazine, all to prevent this story about Henry Ford’s antisemitic legacy from getting into the hands of 230 subscribers
https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/henry-ford-and-jews-story-dearborn-didnt-want-told
Henry Ford and the Jews, the story Dearborn didn’t want told | Bridge Michigan
When a city-financed journal explored a darker side of the auto titan, Dearborn’s mayor banned its distribution and fired the writer. Public officials fail the public when they stifle serious journalism. It’s media’s role to step up.
@Kavus @JoParkerBear no guarantees in historical research, but yes, it's my understanding that's very possible.
@Kavus @ATurnOfTheNut an inspiration, not the inspiration.
There’s a great PBS documentary somewhere about eugenics programs within the U.S., and how Nazi scientists were inspired by our programs in many ways. Also, in the 1910s-1920s, the US passed awful immigration laws and began to use a horribly dehumanizing, abusive system to “de-louse” or “de-germ” Mexicans who crossed the border to work. They made them bathe in flammables, which led to the Bath Riots of 1917. But in the 1920s, we began using Zyklon-B [edited to clarify we used Zyklon-B on clothing and freight items, not humans] via a gas delivery system on the US border— at a lower concentration than the nazis later did— to “disinfect” Mexicans to keep out the so-called Spanish flu. But it was our program and use of Zyklon-B that inspired the gas chamber system with the same deadly agent later used to exterminate Jews. Then, of course, after WWII the United States and other western countries allowed nazi scientists to come work for them.
Point being, with Ford, science and innovation have always been inspired and/or shared within that borderless community. The quote from Hitler is real, but he was likely just acknowledging someone he thought to be a great thinker and innovator.
⚠️CW: Degrading, dehumanizing, nude photographs in these links of torture programs that occurred within the U.S. to “delouse” and “vaccinate” Mexican citizens
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Bath_riots
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/zyklon-b-us-border/
https://theweek.com/world-news/35581/how-america-inspired-third-reich
दुःख блядь@Kavus @helpmeskeletor
Oh dear
The main thing popping into my mind when I think about Henry Ford is his raging anti-semitism
@souvlaki
Oh that I knew about. I never thought he was a good *person*, I just thought he was good to his workers because he thought it was a good idea. I never knew he was forced to.
@helpmeskeletor
Oh that I knew about. I never thought he was a good *person*, I just thought he was good to his workers because he thought it was a good idea. I never knew he was forced to.
@helpmeskeletor
Foxy Gekkerson@helpmeskeletor
It’s *especially* fascinating that Ford of all people is so mythologized despite the fact that he was a raging Nazi sympathizer. So much so that in 1938, Hitler sent two Nazis to Dearborn, MI to give Ford The Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal Nazi Germany could give to a civilian foreigner.
Ford must’ve had a damn good PR team to have swept that under the rug.