5 ms·

Henry Ford for all his faults (and there were MANY) at least understood that you gotta have a customer base for your products, and that paying workers well help

Henry Ford for all his faults (and there were MANY) at least understood that you gotta have a customer base for your products, and that paying workers well helps everybody out.

Herring 11mo ago
Ok so that's 1 guy 100 years ago. How many golden parachutes and layoffs have there been since then? Cmon people put 2+2 together, it's not that hard.
- Apocryphon 11mo ago
  The behavior you’re describing really got big in the 80s with Jack Welch at GE. Which, admittedly, is nearly half a century ago.
  - QuercusMax 11mo ago
    Many of our current society's problems can be directly traced back to Reagan-era policies. Anyone who seriously believes in trickle-down Reaganomics is a fool or a liar.
    - Herring 11mo ago
      Those economic policies were a backlash to the 1970s Civil Rights pushes. You can always count on racists to destroy themselves rather than to stop abusing others.
      - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
        That LBJ quote rings true more and more with each passing year. “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”
        will4274 11mo ago
        My favorite LBJ quote has always been the one about voting for Democrats for a hundred years. A true believer in equality, he was.
      - will4274 11mo ago
        More a backlash to the economic policies of the 1970s and their effects than the social policies of the 1970s actually.
alecco 11mo ago
Henry Ford wanted to raise salaries of his employees but the Dodge brothers (who owned only 10% of the company) successfully sued and "As of 2025, in Delaware, the jurisdiction where over half of all U.S. public companies are domiciled, shareholder primacy is still upheld." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
- newsclues 11mo ago
  My understanding is that that legal case really states that you can’t defraud your shareholders by funnelling money into other businesses they have no ownership in. It doesn’t set the legal standard that profits must be maximized which is impossible.
  - Ethee 11mo ago
    Correct, a quote from the linked wiki article: "Dodge is often misread or mistaught as setting a legal rule of shareholder wealth maximization. This was not and is not the law. Shareholder wealth maximization is a standard of conduct for officers and directors, not a legal mandate. The business judgment rule [which was also upheld in this decision] protects many decisions that deviate from this standard. This is one reading of Dodge. If this is all the case is about, however, it isn't that interesting." — M. Todd Henderson
    - newsclues 11mo ago
      Strange that this misinformation is never corrected.
  - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
    It technically doesn't. But that's what corporate ran away with and how they justify it. So it de facto did. Shaped a century of labor law around it.

Henry Ford for all his faults (and there were MANY) at least understood that you gotta have a customer base for your products, and that paying workers well helps everybody out.

Herring 11mo ago

Ok so that's 1 guy 100 years ago. How many golden parachutes and layoffs have there been since then? Cmon people put 2+2 together, it's not that hard.

Apocryphon 11mo ago
The behavior you’re describing really got big in the 80s with Jack Welch at GE. Which, admittedly, is nearly half a century ago.
- QuercusMax 11mo ago
  Many of our current society's problems can be directly traced back to Reagan-era policies. Anyone who seriously believes in trickle-down Reaganomics is a fool or a liar.
  - Herring 11mo ago
    Those economic policies were a backlash to the 1970s Civil Rights pushes. You can always count on racists to destroy themselves rather than to stop abusing others.
    - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
      That LBJ quote rings true more and more with each passing year. “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”
      - will4274 11mo ago
        My favorite LBJ quote has always been the one about voting for Democrats for a hundred years. A true believer in equality, he was.
    - will4274 11mo ago
      More a backlash to the economic policies of the 1970s and their effects than the social policies of the 1970s actually.

alecco 11mo ago

Henry Ford wanted to raise salaries of his employees but the Dodge brothers (who owned only 10% of the company) successfully sued and "As of 2025, in Delaware, the jurisdiction where over half of all U.S. public companies are domiciled, shareholder primacy is still upheld." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

newsclues 11mo ago
My understanding is that that legal case really states that you can’t defraud your shareholders by funnelling money into other businesses they have no ownership in. It doesn’t set the legal standard that profits must be maximized which is impossible.
- Ethee 11mo ago
  Correct, a quote from the linked wiki article: "Dodge is often misread or mistaught as setting a legal rule of shareholder wealth maximization. This was not and is not the law. Shareholder wealth maximization is a standard of conduct for officers and directors, not a legal mandate. The business judgment rule [which was also upheld in this decision] protects many decisions that deviate from this standard. This is one reading of Dodge. If this is all the case is about, however, it isn't that interesting." — M. Todd Henderson
  - newsclues 11mo ago
    Strange that this misinformation is never corrected.
- johnnyanmac 11mo ago
  It technically doesn't. But that's what corporate ran away with and how they justify it. So it de facto did. Shaped a century of labor law around it.