Ford and Stalin. How to Live in Humaneness

The second part of legislature that concerns defending control in compliance with the dominating conception against alternatives incompatible with it was introduced both in Russia and in the West in the period between 1917 and the 1950s when Stalin and his era were defamed in the USSR. After that the power passed into the hands of the new generation of Trotskyites, soulless bureaucrats and self-seeking career-makers. Under their rule the USSR lapsed into the period of «zastoi» (stagnation). The ideals of socialism were discredited in the opinion of Western intelligentsia, lost their popular support and no more threatened to eliminate the capitalism of Euro-American type.

In the USSR of Stalin’s times the notorious article 58 represented this part of legislature. It set a custodial punishment for various counter-revolutionary and anti-Soviet activities. In the West the policy of defending normal control in compliance with the dominating conception against alternative conceptions was also present. The «witch hunt» in the USA in the age of «McCarthyism»[67] and «professional ban» for left-wing supporters in Germany in the 1970s and early 1980s could be named as examples of executing such a policy.

But if we speak about an era when the control of society along the biblical conception is being suppressed and a self-government acting to the benefit of God’s kingdom is introduced professional lawyers and especially legislators who never think about the conceptual background of legislation are the type producing the most detrimental effect. They are more detrimental than the more or less law-abiding businessmen (including usurious bankers and stock exchange speculators) who adapt to any legislation in force. A businessman (viewed as a class) will adapt to any legislation that from his point of view merely sets the «rules of the game». If the common «rules of the game» are altered most businessmen who are interested in nothing but their business and never think about global problems of sociology will adapt to them provided their life is not endangered and they are not threatened by expropriation («nationalization») of their property and enterprises. In our age a businessman does have a traditional unwritten right to forget about the conceptual background of legislation. Professional lawyers of our time have already forfeited such a right.

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Having made this digression let us go back to Ford’s book:

«I have no quarrel with the general attitude of scoffing at new ideas. It is better to be skeptical of all new ideas and to insist upon being shown rather than to rush around in a continuous brainstorm after every new idea. Skepticism, if by that we mean cautiousness, is the balance wheel of civilization. Most of the present acute troubles of the world arise out of taking on new ideas without first carefully investigating to discover if they are good ideas. An idea is not necessarily good because it is old, or necessarily bad because it is new, but if an old idea works, then the weight of the evidence is all in its favor. Ideas are of themselves extraordinarily valuable, but an idea is just an idea. Almost any one can think up an idea. The thing that counts is developing it into a practical product.

I am now most interested in fully demonstrating that the ideas we have put into practice are capable of the largest application — that they have nothing peculiarly to do with motor cars or tractors but form something in the nature of a universal code. I am quite certain that it is the natural code and I want to demonstrate it so thoroughly that it will be accepted, not as a new idea, but as a natural code» (Introduction. “What Is the Idea?”).

This is a brief paragraph but very rich in meaning if one discerns in the terms «code» and «natural code» something different from the penal code, «gentleman’s code» of the criminal community and other crooks, «code of honor» of various corporations of individualists, «moral code» of a communist or a capitalist and the rest of written and unwritten legislation of a crowd-“elitist” society.

In fact in the above quotation Ford says that in his work he sincerely and in good conscience follows a code of objective human rights as far as he has managed to discover and to grasp them. And in his book he describes his vision of a normal algorithms of controlling production and distribution in society according to a conception alternative to the biblical one which dominates the Western civilization: the conception of buying everything up by means of mafia-like corporate supra-national usury. Yet Ford is not writing down his ideas in a rigid form of a law code titled «On Economic and Financial Activity, Labor Relations and Social Security» or a treatise on sociology whose structure corresponds to the lengthy list of big and small issues that are discussed. He is simply telling a story where economic, psychological, cultural and social issues are all intertwined as they are in real life. And every man is capable of understanding Ford’s story if he wishes to understand, if he is interested in these issues and if he is aware of their importance for ensuring both his own prosperity and the prosperity of other people (excluding aggressive parasites from the ranks of the prosperous since parasites must not prosper).

Also Ford says that he firmly believes in the following.

He has discovered and tested the means to control production and distribution of products and to solve social problems co

After this norm is established the system that was successfully implemented in «Ford Motors» will become a natural way to do business and to take part in ventures headed by people who also adhere to this norms.

It is also important that these ethic and organizational norms of managing a business have proved their viability on the microeconomic level in a macroeconomy of the Biblical-Talmudic type which is based on domination of usury and stock exchange speculations organized by mafias and supported by all the might of state and its legal mechanism.[68]

Now let us demonstrate Ford’s views on production and consumption which form the backbone of a technical civilization’s life. Ford says:

«The primary functions are agriculture, manufacture, and transportation[69]. Community life is impossible without them <of the technology-based civilization, though life of a biological civilization based on different moral and ethic principles and beliefs is possible>. They hold the world together. Raising things, making things, and earning things are as primitive as human need and yet as modern as anything can be. They are of the essence of physical life. When they cease, community life ceases <of a technology-based civilization>» (Introduction. “What Is the Idea?”).

This paragraph makes it clear that Ford begins describing his social and economic views with stating that the multiindustrial system of production and consumption is systemically integral. Its performance determines whether the society as a whole or certain groups within it prosper or not. Consequently it determines the non-economic aspects of prosperity that depend on the economy.

Ford goes on:

«There is plenty of work to do. Business is merely work. Speculation in things already produced <as well as speculating with money, i.e. usury> — that is not business. It is just more or less respectable graft. But it ca