«Capital that a business makes for itself, that is employed to expand the workman’s opportunity and increase his comfort and prosperity, and that is used to give more and more men work, at the same time reducing the cost of service to the public — that sort of capital, even though it be under single control, is not a menace to humanity. It is a working surplus held in trust and daily use for the benefit of all. The holder of such capital can scarcely regard it as a personal reward. No man can view such a surplus as his own, for he did not create it alone. It is the joint product of his whole organization» (put in bold type by the authors) (Ch. 13. “Why be Poor?”).
Thus it may be understood that though H. Ford is one of private owners and capitalists and a shareholder of «Ford Motors Company», he nonetheless actually perceives «Ford Motors» (and also all the other enterprises in the USA and in the world) as public property of all nations and mankind in general which is controlled personally by certain individuals. He does not go into the details of: who has been personally trusted to control this or that property by society; and who has usurped this right and misuses the legal right of private property by exploiting people’s ignorance and the vices of historically developing culture. But Henry Ford is a socialist by the essence of his words.
This explains the calumnious character of Marxist articles on H. Ford and his activity:
In the 20th century the psychical Trotskyites[169] and their backstage masters claimed to build not a really socialist society but a slave-owning system[170] on the basis of exclusive exploitation of the Ideas of socialism and justice in the social life organization in the form of Marxism-Leninism. That’s why socialist «Fordizm» was so dangerous for their project.
On the other hand H. Ford developed the socialist ideas freely and independently of contemporary Marxist rubbish, which was hardly known to him. This fact only speaks for his, in this case, common sense. Because the real socialism on the basis of Marxism — despite all the subjective desire of many true communists in and outside Russia to be faithful to Marxism — cannot be objectively realized for two fundamentally important reasons:
Philosophy with its «basic» question “What is primary: matter or mind?” takes us away from solving the problem of predicting consequences to the end of choosing the best scheme of action which makes the fully functional control possible. In other words if you do not foresee all the possible actions and their consequences beforehand how can you consciously choose an action which leads to the realization of consciously set goals?
Marxist «political economy» is based on fictional categories that cannot be evaluated in the process of economical activity. («Required product» and «surplus product» — could you distinguish them in the warehouse; «required working hours» and «surplus working hours» — could you find the watch that shows when the former end and the latter begin; «expenditure of labor» in many fields of activity used as a basis of price formation theory but which cannot be objectively measured; only idiots can agree that a bookkeeping operation of «value transfer» — when numbers are transferred from one account to another — ratified by the legislation in action is an objective economical process of transfer of objectively immeasurable value of means of production on the delivered product, etc.) As a result Marxist political economy cannot have anything in common with bookkeeping (socialism — according one of Lenin’s aphoristic definitions — is «accounting and control»). The latter is a basis of control on the micro-level of economy and gives rise to statistics that is essential for analysis, modeling planning and control on the macro-level of multiindustrial production and consumption system[171].
Let us return to the part of H. Ford’s book where we have stopped. H. Ford continues:
«The owner’s idea may have released all the energy and direction, but certainly it did not supply all the energy and direction. Every workman was a partner in the creation. No business can possibly be considered only with reference to to-day and to the individuals engaged in it. It must have the means to carry on. The best wages ought to be paid. A proper living ought to be assured every participant in the business — no matter what his part. But, for the sake of that business’s ability to support those who work in it, a surplus has to be held somewhere. The truly honest manufacturer holds his surplus profits in that trust. Ultimately it does not matter where this surplus be held nor who controls it; it is its use that matters.
Capital that is not constantly creating more and better jobs is more useless than sand. Capital that is not constantly making conditions of daily labor better and the reward of daily labor more just, is not fulfilling its highest function. The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more service for the betterment of life» (Ch. 13. “Why be Poor?”).
What conclusion may be drawn from the last two paragraphs though H. Ford himself did not make it? — If it is said that «No business can possibly be considered only with reference to to-day and to the individuals engaged in it. It must have the means to carry on. (...) Capital that is not constantly creating more and better jobs is more useless than sand. Capital that is not constantly making conditions of daily labor better and the reward of daily labor more just, is not fulfilling its highest function. The highest use of capital is not to make more money <personally by his owner>, but to make money do more service for the betterment of life <of everybody>» then, as the proverb goes, having said “A” — say “B”. In particular:
As the juridical private capital in its essence and origin is public property and not personal or family property then its control must be handed over not to the juridical kin-heirs according to the right of succession or a portion out described in a will as it takes place in case of private property. But it must be handed over to the best in moral and professional qualities from the circle irrespective of his social background and post occupied by him whether he is an owner, chairman of the directors’ board, Chief Executive, top-manager, etc.
Though H. Ford himself handed the management of «Ford Motors» to his relatives[172] he was ready to eliminate that rule and thus turn a juridical private ownership over means of production into public ownership on paper and in practice.
Only if the right of enterprise management is inherited by the most deserving of candidates — irrespective of his right to inherit a family property of the firm founder as a relative «capital that is employed to expand the workman’s opportunity at the same time reducing the cost of service to the public, even though it be under single control, is not a menace to humanity».
However let us again stress that the right of public ownership on the means of production originates from the world understanding of separate individuals as well as society on the whole and cannot be realized legislatively in an opposition to the dominating morality and world understanding[173].
First, in a society’s culture and psychology a moral worldview basis should appear in which the ownership on the collectively used means of production is understood as public irrespective of its legal form and only after the domination of public ownership de facto will express itself in the practice of management of a social multiindustrial production and consumption system and will legally ratify itself.