Re: 100 Years Behind
Not that that is what Fordism was.
Try the numbers for yourself. Ford had an establishment of 13,000 workers who were being paid $2.50 a day. Model T sold for $500.
So, he doubles wages to $5 a day. Imagine, pretend, that all 13,000 workers then bought a Model T out of that extra money? On 250 working days a year that's an increase in wage bill of $8.125 million.
And an increase in sales of $6.5 million: note, that's sales, not GP and certaily not net proft.
So, increasing wages so that employees could purchase the goods they were makingis an obvious and simple net loss for Ford.
Therefore, because Ford was not an idiot, this obviously is not what he did or why he did it.
What was true was that Ford had a turnover of 50,000 workers in order to maintain that 13,000 establishment. With all the search and training costs that implies. That turnover slumped with the $5 a day wages. Raising wages actually reduced Ford's total wage bill.
Which is rather what I suspect Foxconn is doing. For, believe it or not, there is actually a shortage of manufacturing labour in China at present, at least in certain areas. Tbus in order to reduce turnover you quite logically set out to pay more than your competing potential employers.