What should liberals be trying to accomplish?

[Boojatta]

4. I suspect that the story of Henry Ford's motivation is at least in part an urban legend.

"it used to be that Henry Ford paid his employees well, because paying them well ensured a good, stable middle-class market for the purchase of his cars."


Perhaps, after raising wages, Ford noticed that his employees tended to buy Ford automobiles, and this became common knowledge among the general public, and a very good kind of advertising, because it is presumed that Ford employees knew better than others the inside story that told them to what degree the automobiles were well-made. I imagine that if employees had been close to being able to afford Ford automobiles, but couldn't quite afford them, then a marginal increase in their wages might be helpful, especially if they bought the automobiles partly on credit and therefore couldn't afford to take any risks, and had to do everything in their power to keep their jobs so that they could continue to make their payments.

However, what was Ford's initial motivation? It might have been partly a desire to keep dividends low, to persuade some investors to sell their stock so that Ford could buy it. Partly it might have been a desire for good PR among the pre-existing middle class. Mass production allowed Ford to produce an automobile that some middle-class people could afford, so Ford could afford to offend wealthy people who might have considered his wage policy to be akin to socialism.