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They forget that falling prices also mean falling costs and increased sales, which lead to higher profits, more capital investment, greater production, and higher real wages. Henry Ford succeeded, and his workers prospered, not because he raised prices, but because he lowered them. Cheaper Model T's did not impose a burden on the public or compel Ford to lower wages.

Perhaps Ford isn't the best example. Ford paid his workers well enough they could afford what they produced. That got the vehicles out of the lot.

Businesses can't long endure the squeeze between increased (or even static) labor costs and falling revenues. What other costs will decline?

I don;t expect electricity costs to decline much, because of the plants going off line. Natural gas will be cheap until the wells producing now deplete, and natural gas wells in general and horizontal wells in particular have steep depletion curves.

Ford did not have to deal with the EPA, OSHA, or any of a number of alphabet soup agencies that can effectively shut a business down, nor an insane regulatory climate.

Ford couldn't have been sued because someone (in a 'protected' group) got their feelings hurt.

As for greater production, (yes, the oil industry built that), aside from the oil industry and related spinoffs, who is building what that doesn't depend on government contracts? (where the real winners and losers will be decided in a deflationary environment).

I don't see the current situation fitting a model from a century ago.

Ford paid his workers well enough they could afford what they produced.

That's a myth. Ford paid his workers more because the market demanded higher pay. He had terrible turnover and needed skilled craftsman. Don't believe the socialist history you've been taught.

Nobody ever cheats the market.