[Alberta's Child]

Henry Ford's attitude about "paying his workers enough to buy the cars they make" is often (mistakenly) accepted as a basic principle of economics.

The auto industry is one of the few industries in which that is the case. That's because automobile manufacturing is a complex process that involves input from a wide array of industries -- including agriculture (for rubber), mining (for coal, iron, nickel, etc.), and manufacturing (for fabrication of steel, plastics, etc.).

Henry Ford was able to pay his assembly line workers enough money to make the products of their work affordable, but only because these workers were simply at the last point in a long line of processes that were carried out by workers who could not afford to buy new cars. The worker on the rubber plantation in the Philippines wasn't driving around in a brand new Ford . . . nor was the coal miner in Scranton, PA . . . or the iron and nickel mines of Canada.

One of the most sobering realities of economics is that people generally must be employed working for people who have a higher standard of living than they do. If you think about it, it's almost obvious . . . you never see a landscaper mowing lawns in modest neighborhoods, do you?

[asmith92008]

As I understood this, the whole discussion here was about manufacturing in the US, not Filipino rubber plantation workers. While I understand that the rubber plantation workers didn't drive Fords, I'm more worried about US manufacturing workers. Also, the American mineworkers were able to afford cars in a fairly short period of time.

As you seem to admit, the US manufacturers were able to be paid decent wages that allowed them to buy Fords and thus create one of the great giants of the American economy. Of course the boss will always have a higher standard of living than the worker. But when that standard of living comes from off-shoring the product overseas and then pumping the lion's share of the savings into executive pay, it is not right.

[Rev DMV]

. . . nor was the coal miner in Scranton, PA . . .

Well I've seen picture of my grandfather in new Fords from that time. Although he made his best money during WWII as I recall.