The scale of
their living--the rate of their wages--determines the prosperity of the
country.
Throughout all the Ford industries we now have a minimum wage of six
dollars a day; we used to have a minimum of five dollars; before that we
paid whatever it was necessary to pay. It would be bad morals to go back
to the old market rate of paying--but also it would be the worst sort of
bad business.
First get at the relationships. It is not usual to speak of an employee
as a partner, and yet what else is he? Whenever a man finds the
management of a business too much for his own time or strength, he calls
in assistants to share the management with him. Why, then, if a man
finds the production part of a business too much for his own two hands
should he deny the title of "partner" to those who come in and help him
produce? Every business that employs more than one man is a kind of
partnership. The moment a man calls for assistance in his business--even
though the assistant be but a boy--that moment he has taken a partner.
He may himself be sole owner of the resources of the business and sole
director of its operations, but only while he remains sole manager and
sole producer can he claim complete independence.
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