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It is no part of my thought to attack our financial system. I am not in the position of one who has been beaten by the system and wants revenge. It does not make the least difference to me personally what bankers do because we have been able to manage our affairs without outside financial aid. My inquiry is prompted by no personal motive whatsoever. I only want to know whether the greatest good is being rendered to the greatest number» (Ch. 12. “Money — Master or Servant”).
In his book Ford tells about the abject state of the Detroit-Toledo-Ironton railroad before it was acquired by «Ford Motors» and about his own relations with the usurious and stock exchange speculations sector of economy. And it is easy to see that these examples completely explain why all the post-1991 reforms bring no tangible result to the «average man». The point is that the «financiers» and lawyers in their majority (with minor exceptions), i.e. as professional corporations which took the cause of introducing reforms into their hands are capable of establishing neither an ethic nor a technical progress simply because those «financiers» and lawyers have knowledge neither of sciences and applied technologies nor of how enterprises are organized internally and communicate with their environments in every branch of industry. They are unfamiliar with the employee’s psychology and with the psychology of society on the whole. And they presumptuously turn a deaf ear on the words of true experts in those fields[33].
But by having said all of this Ford has in fact stood up against the very basis of the US financial system and consequently against capitalism of the Western type. His words about that «it was no part of his thought to attack» their financial system are no more than sheer politeness and a provision for some of his readers’ folly made after he has already disclosed every flaw belonging to the credit and financing system of the biblical type that is mollified or meticulously concealed by the dominating trend of economic science.
Those few quotations from Ford name the essential thing about Western capitalism that remained undisclosed by Marx in the implications and idle talk of his “Capital”. This essential is to this day being concealed under the cover of implications, idle talk and ignorance by Marxists who pretend to oppose capitalism which is a system of minority being parasitic on the majority yet by their ignorance and twaddle they back up this systemic parasitism.
These revelation-like statements Ford makes regarding the system-forming role that usury and stock exchange speculations play in the economy of Western capitalism are also one of the reasons why true «esoteric» Marxists and their masters have had to put it mildly a grudge against Ford while he was alive and continue having a grudge against him half a century after his death. That is why Marxists keep establishing an image of Ford being a fierce exploiter of the working class.[34]
On the other hand the liberal bourgeois «democrats» who support market economy are also in a predicament. Ford’s writings indicate that it is hardly possible to turn him into a propagandist image of a capitalist entrepreneur, a «self-made man» who personifies the fact that it is possible to make the «American dream» come true when following the «American way of life». In fact one can turn Ford into such an image only by slandering him and creating false notions of his personality, his approach to business and people, his very work in the society. But it is too tempting to get an ally of such a formidable authority: Ford is truly an outstanding personality. And so the liberal supporters of the market make every effort to do it. Let us give as an example the article headed “Henry Ford in Russia” by Alexander Livshits[35] printed in the “Izvestia” newspaper of January 11, 2002 (p. 2, «Observer’s column»).
«The American Henry Ford made a car-factory out of a bicycle-shop. He invented the assembly line[36]. Set up production of cheap cars. People started driving. So one had to build roads. And the whole economy followed. Henry himself became a rich man. Had Ford been born in the USSR, he would most probably end up at a defense factory. What’s the limit? World’s best armoured troop-carrier. An order conferred. A quarterly bonus payment. His business talent would have to be stifled. Or he would have been sent to chop trees in Siberia.[37]
Ford would also have a difficult time in modern Russia. How can one manufacture cars when banks refuse to give long-term loans? But this is not the main point. Russian bureaucracy would knock Henry down. Not only is it a fierce one. It requires lots of money to spend. And what the businessman spends on bribing officials he makes up in the price of his product.[38] (…)
Civilized businessmen think bribes unacceptable. That is why they pass Russia by. And investments are desperately needed. The government, so to say, has grasped the problem. It has passed three anti-bureaucratic laws. It has made registering and getting a license way easier for juridical persons. (…)
What did we get from the government’s i
Believe me, I am no reactionary. And I am not an enemy of the reforms. It is simply that I am sure that the average man is always right.[40] If he gains from reforms, everything has been done the right way[41]. If he loses, it’s the other way round.
We’ll see what we’ll see. It is still possible that in future both registration and licensing procedures will have to be made stricter. There is nothing here to be afraid of. It takes years to build a system of state control. It was so in America. And when the government finally set the firm rules there came Henry Ford. And things got on».
One may ask: has Alexander Livshits read books by Ford proper and lies intentionally? Or he has not read those books and writes nonsense about how «Ford Motors» got started and was ru
And this man holds a doctor’s degree, he is a professor… There are many doctors and professors of his like in Russia, they are the “elite”. It might well be time to disband the Supreme certification board and the whole hierarchy of academic degrees. So that scholars have no titles of honor but their own good name.
Actually Ford made the career of the industry’s founder and «Ford Motors» became a flourishing PRODUCTION and finance corporation (not a FINANCE and «industrial» group) without any help of long-term bank loans. The business returned the money because it was beneficial to the entire society. In that historic period loan interests were moderate in the US and the population’s solvent demand allowed for expanding business both in the qualitative and quantitative way because management efficiency ensured self-repayment.
Ford discovered how production and consumption development are paralyzed by the parasitic finance system based on mafia-like unhindered bank usury and stock exchange speculations. And he came to this conclusion even in a situation relatively favorable for renovating and expanding production.
Yet neither Alexander Livshits (former advisor on economic issues to the President of Russia, later supernumerary advisor to the government of the Russian Federation), nor the many chairmen of the RF Central Bank dismissed after a short time of holding the post, nor Russia’s economic science and conventional sociology do not see[43] the paralyzing effect usury and stock exchange speculations have on micro economy as well as macroeconomy. Over all the years of the reforms loan interest rates have by several times exceeded the probable production growth rate calculated in constant prices. Therefore no management no matter how efficient is capable of turning a furniture workshop into a high-tech enterprise of a national, let alone global scale. And if such loan interest rates remain valid and the outburst of «stock» transactions continues any enterprise that has advanced technology and organizational structure is bound to degrade to a most primitive rule-of-thumb production.