[Zhang Fei]

The minimum wage arises in part from the idea that Ford paid his people more money in order that they could afford to buy his cars. The theory here is that higher incomes beget a strong economy. In reality, Ford was issuing a line of BS to cast himself as a great benefactor. He paid what the market demanded in order to avoid employee turnover at his plants. If he had paid more than the workers were worth, Ford would have shut down. A free market in labor is a great mechanism for divining what a man’s output is worth. Anyone who short-circuits that market by introducing a minimum wage is doing a disservice to society. Idle hands, and so on ...

[Mr Ramsbotham]

I like your tagline.

[Alberta's Child]

Ford could get away with overpaying employees because auto manufacturing is one of the most complex production processes for any product purchased regularly by consumers. The UAW worker on the assembly line was engaged in just the very last step of a long process that involved many different types of raw materials and assembled components.

Ford could pay the assembly line worker enough to buy a new Ford every few years ... but only because hardly anyone else in the production process was getting paid anything close to what the UAW worker was getting paid.