kidattypewriter

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Quote of the Day

From Diogenes Lamp:

Henry Ford was an anti-Semite...

Ford paid his assembly line workers well above the current union rates, to ensure that he had the best workers obtainable. This was essential if his cars were to have a good reputation. But he would give anybody a job. It might be just throwing disused motor parts into bins, but if you did it well you had a job, even during the Depression. And did your religion make any difference? None whatsoever.

What about the sales end? Were Henry Ford's car salesmen ordered to not sell Ford cars to Jews? No, they sold cars to anybody who wanted to buy. As Adam Smith was the first to discover,
an entrepreneur cannot help but improve life, even for people whom he dislikes.

Now picture somebody with Henry Ford's anti-Semitic prejudices in a collectivist, big government state, of the kind that the left yearn for…

I'm sure you can take it from there.

3 comments:

Shelley said...

Actually, I can't. Please tell me.

TimT said...

I'm biased, because I like free markets. But this post seemed to provide a nice perspective on things.

I think the general idea is that individual business men like Ford rely on the good will of others to make money - after all, he can't make people buy his cars. A person at the head of a collectivist system doesn't have to worry about this, since people don't have any choice but to give him money. So he can pretty much let his prejudices run free.

Caz said...

Food for thought; interesting Timmy.

Email: timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au

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