Machine Age the Fordized Man

Machine Age

The Fordized Man by Terry Smith

The author discusses the "organizational revolution," using the Ford Motor Company as context. He notes that a variety of modernizing forces has characterized significant changes in society, including urbanization and the migration of people within and between nations. Methods of mass distribution and mass production in particular have changed our lives. A professional class of managers has arisen who control the flow of goods, capital, machines and men. These are termed the "visible hand," in contrast to the market's invisible hand.

The author then discusses the transition to the "Taylor Age," where life or at least working life began to be organized along the principles espoused by Frederick Winslow Taylor. This system compartmentalized and standardized work in order to increase production efficiency. Ford had to counter the boredom this brought about in his workers by increasing pay and benefits, though these were motivated by the desire to attract and retain the best workers. Ford also took greater control of his employees' lives outside of work, something that was not widely adopted in business.

The author summarizes the effects of Ford's work. "The new Fordized man," he writes, "is broken by redefining work as physical, mechanical exclusively. The mental and imaginative are split two ways: at the plant they become the preserve of management and within New Man are placed in abeyance until he goes home." This New Man was also subject to control at home, lest home life interference with his ability to work. Regulation of human life for the purposes of economic efficiency, a concept that had been evolving throughout the Industrial Revolution, was finally brought to fruition with the Fordized Man.

The second paper discusses Ford in the 1930s. The beginning has a discussion of the prevailing political climate -- from the Smoot Hawley Act that spurred a reduction in trade around the world to the counterbalancing political forces of the day. Free labor unions were becoming political tools, for example working with Fascist organizations in Italy. The discussion then shifts to the conditions of the American worker during the late 1920s and early 1930s. American workers were wealthier and better-dressed than their European counterparts. They spent much more on their wardrobes.

The same can be said of diets -- workers in Detroit had varied diets that were more plentiful than workers in Europe enjoyed. American housing was also superior, where workers lived in conditions that in Europe were reserved for the upper middle class. Americans visited doctors and dentists, another luxury in Europe. Ford in particular had been providing for its workers in this way, and continued to do so even after the rise of the labor union. The rise of consumer credit also helped fuel American consumption.