Henry Ford on war and imperialism
Henry Ford on war and imperialism
A progressive discourse even by today’s standards
In my last commentary on April 11, I focused on Henry Ford’s method of manufacturing, involving continuous improvement in the process of production of the product, with the intention of producing an affordable, high quality, and durable product in response to consumer needs and desires; and involving the highest wages that the market can manage combined with modest dividends for workers-stockholders. In today’s commentary, I continue my reflections on Henry Ford, focusing on Ford’s comments with respect to war, imperialism, and neocolonialism, which I find progressive by today’s standards.
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On War
Writing in 1922, Henry Ford maintained that World War I made evident the “great number of defects in the financial system” as well as the insecurity of a business community that exists on the foundation of the pursuit of money instead of the pillars of advancing productivity and sound business practices.
Henry Ford declared himself against war and the hidden elite that sponsors it. He wrote in 1922:
“Business should be on the side of peace, because peace is business's best asset. . ..
“An impartial investigation of the last war, of what preceded it and what has come out of it, would show beyond a doubt that there is in the world a group of men with vast powers of control, that prefers to remain unknown, that does not seek office or any of the tokens of power, that belongs to no nation whatever but is international—a force that uses every government, every widespread business organization, every agency of publicity, every resource of national psychology, to throw the world into a panic for the sake of getting still more power over the world. . ..
“The point to keep in mind is that, though we won the military contest, the world has not yet quite succeeded in winning a complete victory over the promoters of war. We ought not to forget that wars are a purely manufactured evil and are made according to a definite technique. A campaign for war is made upon as definite lines as a campaign for any other purpose. First, the people are worked upon. By clever tales the people's suspicions are aroused toward the nation against whom war is desired. Make the nation suspicious; make the other nation suspicious. All you need for this is a few agents with some cleverness and no conscience and a press whose interest is locked up with the interests that will be benefited by war. Then the "overt act" will soon appear. It is no trick at all to get an "overt act" once you work the hatred of two nations up to the proper pitch.
“There were men in every country who were glad to see the World War begin and sorry to see it stop. Hundreds of American fortunes date from the Civil War; thousands of new fortunes date from the World War. Nobody can deny that war is a profitable business for those who like that kind of money. War is an orgy of money, just as it is an orgy of blood.”
Because of these anti-war principles, the Ford Motor Company did not take war orders from the belligerent European powers that had been involved in the World War since 1914. “We had, up to the time of the [U.S.] declaration of war, absolutely refused to take war orders from the foreign belligerents. It is entirely out of keeping with the principles of our business to disturb the routine of our production unless in an emergency. It is at variance with our human principles to aid either side in a war in which our country was not involved.”
However, once the United States issued a declaration of war, Ford believed that it was the patriotic duty of all U.S. citizens to support the U.S. war effort. Accordingly, from April 1917 to November 1918, “our factory worked practically exclusively for the Government,” making cars, trucks, ambulances, and parts for the armed forces.
But Henry Ford was not interested in participating in a permanent war economy. Following the Armistice of 1918, the Ford Motor Company returned to the production of cars, trucks, and tractors for peace and for a prosperity based in peace.
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On imperialism and neocolonialism
Henry Ford was opposed to what we would today call neocolonialism and imperialism, and he was in favor of the economic independence of countries in development. In 1922, he wrote:
“Foreign trade is full of delusions. We ought to wish for every nation as large a degree of self-support as possible. Instead of wishing to keep them dependent on us for what we manufacture, we should wish them to learn to manufacture themselves and build up a solidly founded civilization. When every nation learns to produce the things which it can produce, we shall be able to get down to a basis of serving each other along those special lines in which there can be no competition….
“A large proportion of our foreign trade is based on the backwardness of our foreign customers. Selfishness is a motive that would preserve that backwardness. Humanity is a motive that would help the backward nations to a self-supporting basis. Take Mexico, for example. We have heard a great deal about the "development" of Mexico. Exploitation is the word that ought instead to be used. When its rich natural resources are exploited for the increase of the private fortunes of foreign capitalists, that is not development, it is ravishment. You can never develop Mexico until you develop the Mexican. And yet how much of the "development" of Mexico by foreign exploiters ever took account of the development of its people? The Mexican peon has been regarded as mere fuel for the foreign money-makers. Foreign trade has been his degradation. . ..
“Does any thoughtful man imagine that the world can long continue on the present basis of a few nations supplying the needs of the world? We must think in terms of what the world will be when civilization becomes general, when all the peoples have learned to help themselves. . ..
“Commerce began in service. Men carried off their surplus to people who had none. The country that raised corn carried it to the country that could raise no corn. The lumber country brought wood to the treeless plain. The vine country brought fruit to cold northern climes. The pasture country brought meat to the grassless region. It was all service. When all the peoples of the world become developed in the art of self-support, commerce will get back to that basis. . ..
“Lincoln said that this nation could not survive half-slave and half-free. The human race cannot forever exist half-exploiter and half-exploited. Until we become buyers and sellers alike, producers and consumers alike, keeping the balance not for profit but for service, we are going to have topsy-turvy conditions….”
“France has something to give the world of which no competition can cheat her. So has Italy. So has Russia. So have the countries of South America. So has Japan. So has Britain. So has the United States. The sooner we get back to a basis of natural specialties and drop this free-for-all system of grab, the sooner we shall be sure of international self-respect—and international peace. Trying to take the trade of the world can promote war. It cannot promote prosperity. Some day even the international bankers will learn this.”
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Reflections on Henry Ford
Henry Ford’s puzzling association with antisemitism is truly problematic, and the reasons for it need to be understood and explained. What was involved here was not the same as sharing the prejudices of the time, as Ford did with respect to women and the Russian Revolution. Our tendency today to dismiss and discredit people who possess the prejudices of their time is completely wrong, unethical, and unfair to their memory, and it deprives us of the teachings of our leaders of the past. But Ford on the Jewish question is not like this. It was not merely that he shared certain prejudices of the time with respect to Jews. He was connected to the formulation, publication, and dissemination of theoretical formulations that blame Jews for national and world problems. To be sure, he later apologized, but still. Above all, his involvement in this affair needs to be well understood, and perhaps insightful explanations of its causes can be formulated.
The USA has a special relation with the Jewish people, who constitute a proportion of the American people higher than any other nation in the world, except Israel. The ancient nation of Israel was one of the first nations of the world to leave a legacy of spiritual and cultural teachings for humanity, which are the foundation of the religions of Christianity and Islam as well as the modern principles of social justice. For centuries, Jews have endured discrimination and worse in defense of these revelations and concepts, and they today are not great in number. They must be protected as a special people among the nations of the earth. These truths remain truths, in spite of the indefensible apartheid-like policies of Israel with respect to Palestine since 1967 and the current barbarity of the government of Israel with respect to the people of Palestine, which all of humanity rightly condemns and is mobilizing to end.
In the modern era, a new type of teacher has emerged, in a process different from the revelations to the prophets. Rather than individuals who proclaim divine revelation, there have emerged during the last two centuries leaders of social movements who have deepened human understanding of the modern concept of democracy as well as the human potential for constructing unified human progress toward peace on earth and common socioeconomic development.
His problematic association with antisemitism aside, Henry Ford could be considered among the important leaders of the modern era. On the basis of economic practice, he formulated key insights with respect to productivity and socioeconomic development, transcending and potentially reducing to irrelevance the prevailing political debate between capital and labor. He thus developed in theory and practice an understanding of a key question of our age. And he discerned the connection of questions of productivity and progress to the issues of peace and imperialism, decades before the worldwide anti-imperialist movement arrived to maturity.
Henry Ford discerned that as capitalism evolved, it was shaped by the ill-will of selfish employers rather than the good-will of benevolent ones. He was not aware, or did not emphasize, inasmuch as it was beyond his horizon of experience, that the phenomenon of malevolent capitalists had been true to the extreme in the colonies and semi-colonies of the world.
The initial response of the colonized to the situation of superexploitation was to forge people’s movements that took political power and directed economic production toward human needs through state-owned economic enterprises. As a result, significant gains were made, in Russia, in China, in Korea, in Vietnam, and in Cuba. These gains have not been visible to the capitalist West, which has dismissed the countries as enemies of human civilization or at least sound economics, rather than observing what they were actually doing.
But the Third World socialist projects found that their advances had limits. They had important gains, but not enough to close the economic gap between themselves and the great capitalist economies. So they moved toward a new form of socialism, with economies under state direction, with space for private capital, with emphasis on improving the productive capacity of the economy by creating better productive processes, and with distribution in accordance with socialist values. Third World socialism under construction ultimately arrived in the twenty-first century to Ford’s conclusions with respect to generating wealth through cost-efficient methods in agriculture, industry, and transportation.
Meanwhile, the insights of Ford were ignored by the West, which continued to follow the bad practices of capitalism, ignoring Ford’s teaching on a productive economy with a just wage. In the West, labor unions pushed for higher wages, with the support of the defenders of just causes, leaving the issues of productivity and the emergence of a worldwide anti-imperialist movement to secondary consideration.
We should appreciate and learn from Henry Ford’s insights. And we also ought to reflect on our destructive tendency to not permit ourselves to learn from and appropriate the teachings of the past, which are central to the cultural and spiritual legacy of humanity.
Henry Ford asked, what makes a country great? He proclaimed, “It is not the amount of trade that makes a nation great. The creation of private fortunes, like the creation of an autocracy, does not make any country great. Nor does the mere change of an agricultural population into a factory population. A country becomes great when, by the wise development of its resources and the skill of its people, property is widely and fairly distributed.” Well said, Mr. Ford.
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