DOCSLIB.ORG

RETHINKING the FORD-NAZI CONNECTION Stefan Link

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
RETHINKING the FORD-NAZI CONNECTION Stefan Link Features Forum GHI Research Conference Reports GHI News RETHINKING THE FORD-NAZI CONNECTION Stefan Link GHI DOCTORAL FELLOW IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS HISTORY / HARVARD UNIVERSITY The peculiar admiration that National Socialists had for Henry Ford and the supposed sympathies that the Detroit industrialist harbored for Nazism keep attracting the curious, both academic historians and Internet dilettantes. There is something irresistible about the connection between the man taken to symbolize American industrial modernity and the quintessential villains of the twentieth century. Intriguing anecdotes abound. To name a few: The New York Times reported that a portrait of Henry Ford graced Hitler’s Munich offi ce in 1922.1 Hitler acknowledged Ford in Mein Kampf and Baldur von Schirach testifi ed in court in Nuremberg that “the decisive anti- Semitic book” he had read was Ford’s International Jew.2 According to Prince Louis Ferdinand, Hitler told him over lunch in 1933 that he was “a great admirer of Ford’s” and would do his “best to put his >> the Rise of the Third Reich theories into practice in Germany.”3 German diplomats awarded Ford (New York, 2003), 42, 54. a prestigious decoration in 1938. Robert Ley, head of the Nazi labor 3 Prinz Louis Ferdinand von organization German Labor Front, wrote a letter to Henry Ford from Preussen, Als Kaiseren- 4 kel durch die Welt (Berlin, his Nuremberg prison cell, days before his suicide. 1952), 261. We also know that Nazi engineers and industrial managers adapted 4 The original penciled letter is in the National Archives technological and functional aspects of Fordism. Flow production and Records Administration (assembly lines and vertical integration) had considerable appeal aft er College Park (NARA), RG 238, Entry 51, Box 3. 1936, when the Four-Year Plan sparked renewed interest in industrial rationalization. The Volkswagen plant invoked Ford’s Rouge factory 5 See the essays by Manfred Grieger and Lutz Budraß in as a model, and the German Labor Front hired Ford engineers to Zukunft aus Amerika. Fordis- staff it. Finally, the Nazi-appointed manager of the airplane builder mus in der Zwischenkriegs- zeit, ed. Stift ung Bauhaus Junkers, Heinrich Koppenberg, was a vocal disciple of Ford produc- Dessau and RWTH Aachen 5 (Dessau, 1995). tion techniques. 6 Max Wallace, The American Historians have proposed diff erent understandings of the Ford-Nazi Axis; Neil Baldwin, Henry connection. Some have off ered muckraking indictments of the Ameri- Ford and the Jews: The Mass Production of Hate (New can industrialist as a Nazi sympathizer and war profi teer.6 For others, York, 2001). the connection exhibited Nazi “reactionary modernism,” that para- 7 Jeff rey Herf, Reactionary doxical fusion of technological zeal and anti-modern romanticism Modernism: Technology, Cul- 7 ture, and Politics in Weimar supposedly characteristic of Nazism. Others again have suggested and the Third Reich (Cam- bridge, 1984); Philipp Gassert, Amerika im Dritten 1 “Berlin Hears Ford Is Back- can’s Portrait and Book in 2 Quoted in Max Wallace, The Reich: Ideologie, Propaganda ing Hitler—Bavarian Anti- His Offi ce,” New York Times, American Axis: Henry Ford, und Volksmeinung, 1933- Semitic Chief Has Ameri- December 20, 1922. Charles Lindbergh, and >> 1945 (Stuttgart, 1995). LINK | RETHINKING THE FORD-NAZI CONNECTION 135 a structural nexus between Fordism and fascism. In this vein, Ford- ism is essentially understood as a device of capitalist control over the industrial workforce. In Germany, it is asserted, Fordism only became dominant under Nazism.8 But despite these interpretations, the Ford-Nazi connection still leaves us with considerable uneasiness. It fi ts only awkwardly into the master narratives of a historiography still dominated by national conceptual frameworks. In the American case, the status of Henry Ford as a herald of the roaring 1920s makes it diffi cult to integrate his anti-Semitism and indelicate political leanings into a unifi ed appreciation of his historical role, which, in turn, creates the cliché of the man as an “enigma.” Meanwhile, in German historiography, the juxtaposition of “Ford” and “Nazis” is still more likely to elicit ruminations about the relationship between National Socialism and modernity rather than empirical investigation. The quality of speculation and insinuation that pervades much of the writing on Ford and the Nazis, I believe, is owed to the weak development of transnational interpretive frameworks for the 1920s and 1930s. To be sure, there are ambitious attempts to embed the specifi c Nazi reception of Ford and Fordism within the longitudinal context of the German “Fordist century.”9 Yet the Ford-Nazi connec- tion looks diff erent once we withdraw this national lens and observe the remarkable global career that Ford’s ideas and practices enjoyed during the 1920s and 1930s. Nazis were hardly the only ones excited about Henry Ford during the interwar years—Ford had fans among 8 Karl Heinz Roth, “Fordismus illiberal modernizers across the globe. This was partly due to his und Faschismus. Schlaglich- notoriety as a major organ of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. But it ter auf die Geschichte des Reemtsma-Konzerns 1910- also stemmed from the fact that Ford’s industrial philosophy seemed 1945,” Bulletin für Faschis- to off er a productivist strategy for transcending liberal capitalism mus- und Weltkriegsforschung 30 (2007): 1-30; Rüdiger from the Right. Hachtmann, “Fordismus und Sklavenarbeit. Thesen zur be- The purpose of this essay, then, is to provide some contextualizing trieblichen Rationalisierungs- bewegung 1941 bis 1944,” evidence for the familiar stories of the Ford-Nazi connection and to Potsdamer Bulletin für Zeithi- embed them in contemporaneous, transnational contexts. To do so, storische Studien 43/44 (2008): 21-34. it is fi rst necessary to clear up some misunderstandings of Henry Ford’s place within the American corporate arena in the interwar 9 Adelheid von Saldern and Rüdiger Hachtmann, “Das for- years. Far from typifying American capitalist modernity, Ford and his distische Jahrhundert: Eine company represented a producerist critique of liberal American capi- Einleitung,” Zeithistorische Forschungen Online 6 (2009), talism. Next, I want to situate the Weimar Nazi reception of Ford’s http://www.zeithistorische- antisemitica within a broader global reshaping of the anti-Semitic forschungen.de/site/ 40208942/default.aspx. discourse aft er World War I. I then off er some context for the 1938 136 BULLETIN OF THE GHI | 49 | FALL 2011 Features Forum GHI Research Conference Reports GHI News episode of Hitler awarding Ford a medal. Aft er briefl y touching on the Nazi Volkswagen project, the essay ends by pointing out that the affi nity between “fascism and Fordism” does not look quite as com- pelling once we acknowledge the simultaneous Soviet adaptation of Fordism. In sum, these transnational contexts suggest that we may understand the Ford-Nazi connection as having sprung from a shared background ideology characteristic of the global interwar years: the search for illiberal alternatives to liberal capitalism. Ford Myths To understand the appeal that Ford exerted on the global Right in the interwar years—Nazis included—we must fi rst dispel a few preva- lent myths about Henry Ford and his company. Following Antonio Gramsci’s classic equation of “Americanism and Fordism,”10 historians too oft en have taken Ford as the archetype of American industrial capitalism for this period. But, in truth, Ford Motor Company serves poorly as an emblem of the “New Era” of the 1920s and was entirely sidelined during the New Deal. Between 1919 and 1921, Ford Motor Company (FMC) underwent a major restructuring. Aft er this, the company occupied a unique position in the American corporate arena, which it retained until 1941, when Edsel Ford agreed to war contracts against the wishes of his father Henry. It was only dur- ing this period that FMC became the autarchic production giant so admired by thousands of visitors from across the globe. During the same period, however, the American corporate mainstream moved in a rather diff erent direction. The 1920s completed the penetration of corporations into the stock market, increasing access to capital and boosting the growth of “New Era” capitalism. Meanwhile, Henry Ford had bought up all minority shares of FMC over the course of 1919, aft er which it remained the only American company of comparable size whose shares were not traded on the New York Stock Exchange. (In fact, FMC only went pub- lic in 1957.) While its competitor General Motors pioneered a model of corporate governance that relied entirely on professional manag- ers, FMC fortifi ed the charismatic leadership of its founder. Hence, the separation of ownership and management, which increasingly dominated American corporations in the 1920s, did not aff ect FMC until aft er WWII. FMC’s River Rouge complex, which took up full 10 Antonio Gramsci, “Ameri- canism and Fordism,” production in 1920, vertically integrated the supply of raw materials in Selections from the to an unprecedented degree, producing steel, glass, and lumber in Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, ed. Quintin Hoare its own branch factories. But as the market for fi rst cars dried up, a et al. (New York 1971). LINK | RETHINKING THE FORD-NAZI CONNECTION 137 strategy of relying on suppliers for parts and raw materials, as fol- lowed by GM, proved more fl exible and helped competitors avoid the massive losses FMC incurred during the
Load more

Recommended publications
  • D'antonio, Michael Senior Thesis.Pdf
    Before the Storm German Big Business and the Rise of the NSDAP by Michael D’Antonio A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Honors Degree in History with Distinction Spring 2016 © 2016 Michael D’Antonio All Rights Reserved Before the Storm German Big Business and the Rise of the NSDAP by Michael D’Antonio Approved: ____________________________________________________________ Dr. James Brophy Professor in charge of thesis on behalf of the Advisory Committee Approved: ____________________________________________________________ Dr. David Shearer Committee member from the Department of History Approved: ____________________________________________________________ Dr. Barbara Settles Committee member from the Board of Senior Thesis Readers Approved: ____________________________________________________________ Michael Arnold, Ph.D. Director, University Honors Program ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This senior thesis would not have been possible without the assistance of Dr. James Brophy of the University of Delaware history department. His guidance in research, focused critique, and continued encouragement were instrumental in the project’s formation and completion. The University of Delaware Office of Undergraduate Research also deserves a special thanks, for its continued support of both this work and the work of countless other students. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • America Holocaust 0.Pdf
    Facing History and Ourselves A Guide to THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Documentary America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference Facing History and Ourselves would like to acknowledge Phyllis Goldstein who wrote the manuscript in collaboration with the Facing History team under the direction of Margot Stern Strom and Marc Skvirsky; the design efforts of Joe Wiellette and the thoughtful reviews of David S. Wyman and Martin Ostrow. This study guide was produced by Facing History and Ourselves in consultation with the Educational Print and Outreach Department of the WGBH Educational Foundation. Major funding was provided by the Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Foundation. Additional funding provided by The Jaffe Foundation, A. C. Ratshesky Foundation, Mr. M. Howard Jacobson, Mr. and Mrs. William J. Poorvu, Arnold and Anne Hiatt, David and Muriel Pokross, Dr. and Mrs. Maurice Vanderpol, Ms. Joyce Friedman, Mr. Milton L. Gail, Edward and Leona Zarsky, Dr. and Mrs. David Kaufman, Mr. Richard Arisian, Dr. and Mrs. Alan N. Ertel, Dr. and Mrs. Jonathan Cohen, Dr. and Mrs. Albert Schilling, Ms. Harriet Reisen, Julius and Ruth Kaplan, Samuel and Sidonia Natansohn, Ms. Anna Kolodner, Lorraine Betwenik Gotlib and Sanford Gotlib, and Mr. Joseph M. Rainho. America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference is a Fine Cut Productions, Inc. film for THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, a production of WGBH Boston. Writer, Producer, and Director: Martin Ostrow Executive Producer: Judith Crichton Senior Producer: Margaret Drain America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference is the winner of a Golden Eagle Award from CINE (Council on Nontheatrical Events), a Gold Plaque Award at the Chicago International Film Festival, and an award from the Writer’s Guild of America.
    [Show full text]
  • Hitler's American Model
    Hitler’s American Model The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law James Q. Whitman Princeton University Press Princeton and Oxford 1 Introduction This jurisprudence would suit us perfectly, with a single exception. Over there they have in mind, practically speaking, only coloreds and half-coloreds, which includes mestizos and mulattoes; but the Jews, who are also of interest to us, are not reckoned among the coloreds. —Roland Freisler, June 5, 1934 On June 5, 1934, about a year and a half after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the Reich, the leading lawyers of Nazi Germany gathered at a meeting to plan what would become the Nuremberg Laws, the notorious anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi race regime. The meeting was chaired by Franz Gürtner, the Reich Minister of Justice, and attended by officials who in the coming years would play central roles in the persecution of Germany’s Jews. Among those present was Bernhard Lösener, one of the principal draftsmen of the Nuremberg Laws; and the terrifying Roland Freisler, later President of the Nazi People’s Court and a man whose name has endured as a byword for twentieth-century judicial savagery. The meeting was an important one, and a stenographer was present to record a verbatim transcript, to be preserved by the ever-diligent Nazi bureaucracy as a record of a crucial moment in the creation of the new race regime. That transcript reveals the startling fact that is my point of departure in this study: the meeting involved detailed and lengthy discussions of the law of the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • Al-QAEDA and the ARYAN NATIONS
    Al-QAEDA AND THE ARYAN NATIONS A FOUCAULDIAN PERSPECTIVE by HUNTER ROSS DELL Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON DECEMBER 2006 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For my parents, Charles and Virginia Dell, without whose patience and loving support, I would not be who or where I am today. November 10, 2006 ii ABSTRACT AL-QAEDA AND THE ARYAN NATIONS A FOUCALTIAN PERSPECTIVE Publication No. ______ Hunter Ross Dell, M.A. The University of Texas at Arlington, 2006 Supervising Professor: Alejandro del Carmen Using Foucauldian qualitative research methods, this study will compare al- Qaeda and the Aryan Nations for similarities while attempting to uncover new insights from preexisting information. Little or no research had been conducted comparing these two organizations. The underlying theory is that these two organizations share similar rhetoric, enemies and goals and that these similarities will have implications in the fields of politics, law enforcement, education, research and United States national security. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................ iii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION......................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Henry Ford, 1863-1947: He Revolutionized the Auto Industry
    VOA Special English is a daily news and information service for English learners. Read the story and then do the activities at the end. MP3s of stories can be found at voaspecialenglish.com Henry Ford, 1863-1947: He Revolutionized the Auto Industry AP Visitors at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan PEOPLE IN AMERICA -- a program in Special English on the Voice of America. Every week at this time, we tell the story of a person was important in the history of the United States. Today Steve Ember and Frank Oliver begin the story of industrialist Henry Ford. STEVE EMBER: Many people believe Henry Ford invented the automobile. But Henry Ford did not start to build his first car until eighteen ninety-six. That was eleven years after two Germans -- Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz -- developed the first gasoline-powered automobile. Many people believe Henry Ford invented the factory system that moved a car's parts to the worker, instead of making the worker move to the parts. That is not true, either. Many manufacturers used this system before Ford. What Henry Ford did was to use other people's ideas and make them better. Others made cars. Henry Ford made better cars. And he sold them for less money. Others built car factories. Henry Ford built the biggest factory of its time. And he made the whole factory a moving production line. Special English is part of VOA Learning English: voanews.com/learningenglish | January 2012 | 1 Henry Ford had great skills in making machines work. He also had great skills as an organizer.
    [Show full text]
  • The Holocaust and Mass Atrocity: the Continuing Challenge for Decision, 21 Mich
    University of Florida Levin College of Law UF Law Scholarship Repository UF Law Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 2013 The oloH caust and Mass Atrocity: The onC tinuing Challenge for Decision Winston P. Nagan University of Florida Levin College of Law, [email protected] Aitza M. Haddad Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub Part of the Human Rights Law Commons, and the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Winston P. Nagan & Aitza M. Haddad, The Holocaust and Mass Atrocity: The Continuing Challenge for Decision, 21 Mich. St. Int'l L. Rev. 337 (2013), available at http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub/612 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at UF Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in UF Law Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UF Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE HOLOCAUST AND MASS ATROCITY: THE CONTINUING CHALLENGE FOR DECISION * Winston P. Nagan & Aitza M. Haddad"~ Figure 1: Contemporary Art Expressions Symbolizing the Horror of the Holocaust' * Winston P. Nagan, J.S.D. (1977) is a Sam T. Dell Research Scholar Professor of Law at the University of Florida College of Law. He is widely published in human rights, a fellow of the RSA, and the interim Secretary General of WAAS. He is also an affiliate Professor of Anthropology and Latin American Studies and the Director of the University of Florida Institute for Human Rights, Peace and Development. ** Aitza M. Haddad, J.D. (2010), LL.M.
    [Show full text]
  • A History of Antisemitism Fall 2019
    A History of Antisemitism Fall 2019 Dr. Katherine Aron-Beller Tel Aviv University International [email protected] _____________________________________________________________________ An analysis of articulated hatred toward Jews as a historical force. After treating precursors in the pagan world of antiquity and in classical Christian doctrine, the course will focus on the modern phenomenon crystallizing in 19th-century Europe and reaching its lethal extreme in Nazi ideology, propaganda, and policy. Expressions in the U.S. and in the Arab world, as well as Jewish reactions to antisemitism, will also be studied. Course Outline 1. Wednesday 23td October: Antisemitism – the oldest hatred Gavin Langmuir, Toward a Definition of Antisemitism. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)pp. 311-352. Peter Schäfer, Judaeophobia: Attitudes Toward the Jews in the Ancient World. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1997, pp. 34-64, 197-211. 2. Monday 28th October: Jews as Christ Killers – the deepest accusation New Testament (any translation): Matthew 23; 26:57-27:54; John 5:37-40, 8:37-47 John Chrysostom, Discourses Against Judaizing Christians, Homily 1 at: www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/chrysostom-jews6.html Marcel Simon, Verus Israel. Oxford: Littman Library, 1986, pp. 179-233. 3. Wednesday 30th October: The Crusades: The First Massacre of the Jews Soloman bar Samson: The Crusaders in Mainz, May 27, 1096 at: www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1096jews-mainz.html Robert Chazan, “Anti-Jewish violence of 1096 – Perpetrators and dynamics” in Anna Sapir Abulafia Religious Violence between Christians and Jews (Palgrave, 2002) Daniel Lasker, “The Impact of the Crusades on the Jewish-Christian debate” Jewish History 13, 2 (1999) 23-26 4.
    [Show full text]
  • AN Emperlcal ASSESSMENT of WHITE
    - AN EMPERlCAL ASSESSMENT OF WHITE NATIONALIST IDEOLOGY ON A COLLEGE CAMPUS By MICHAEL R. JONES Bachelor ofArts Southeastern Oklahoma State University Durant, Oklahoma 1999 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of the Oklahoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE December, 2003 • AN EMPERICAL ASSESSMENT OF WHITE NATIONALIST IDEOLOGY ON A COLLEGE CAMPUS ii - DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to the men with whom I served during my tour of duty in the Marine Corps. Both Black and White, from small towns and the inner cities, we proved that race its irrelevant, and served together admirably to keep our world free oftyranny and oppression. 111 n~~.,.".......~~~~-----------· ­ Acknowledgements First I would like to thank my parents, Michael R. Jones Sr. and Anita Matthews, and my Grandmother, Henrietta Dawson. Your love and support over these infinite college years has been the key to my success. This product would not have been possible without the mentoring of Dr. John Cross, who has taught me to design research from a micro-macro, and economic perspective, and those of us from a working class background can also be scholarly too. Along with Dr. Richard Dodder and Dr. Gary Webb whose guidance has been invaluable, not only on this project but also in my graduate seminars, I would also like to thank two undergraduate professors from Southeastern Oklahoma State University: Dr. Dick Butcher, my ad-hoc committee member, and Dr. Ken Elder, who first introduced me to this topic through his intriguing lectures on rockers, mods, and "A Clockwork Orange".
    [Show full text]
  • DOCUMENT RESUME ED 362 913 CS 508 347 TITLE Proceedings Of
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 362 913 CS 508 347 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (76th, Kansas City, Missouri, August 11-14, 1993). Part I: Journalism History. INSTITUTION Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. PUB DATE Aug 93 NOTE 466p.; For other sections of these proceedings, see CS 508 348-362. For 1992 proceedings, see ED 349 608-623. Some illustrations may not reproduce clearly. PUB TYPE Collected Works Conference Proceedings (021) Historical Materials (060) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC19 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS American Indians; Colonial History (United States); *Journalism History; Mass Media Role; *Newspapers; Photojournalism; Presidents of the United States; Pueblo (People); Socioeconomic Status; World War II IDENTIFIERS Black Newspapers; Ford (Henry); Foreign News; *Investigative Journalism; *Media Coverage; Muckraking; Political Cartoons; Poole (Ernest); Scopes Trial; Taft (William Howard) ABSTRACT The Journalism History section of this collection of conference presentations contains the following 15 papers: "Henry Ford's Newspaper: The 'Dearborn Independent,' 1919-1927" (James C. Foust); "Redefining the News?: Editorial Content and the 'Myth of Origin' Debate in Journalism History" (Elliot King); "'Nonpublicity' and the Unmaking of a President: William Howard Taft and the Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy of 1909-1910" (Stephen Ponder); "The Rise of Ernest Poole: The Making of a Social Muckraker" (James Boylan); "'The Sculking Indian Enemy': Colonial Newspapers' Portrayal of Native Americans" (David A. Copeland); "News before Newspapers: A Perspective on News Values" (Richard Streckfuss); "The Evolution of a Practice: Investigative Journalism 1960-1975" (James L. Aucoin); "The Re-Emergence of American Investigative Journalism 1960-1975" (James L.
    [Show full text]
  • Henry Ford and 'The International Jew': His Century-Old Anti
    Headline: Henry Ford and ‘The International Jew’: His Century-old Anti- Semitism Thrives in the 21st Century Source: The Dearborn Historian, Fall Issue, 2018 What: This is four pages of an 16-page article I wrote for the current issue of the Dearborn Historical Museum’s quarterly magazine, which I edit. Context: One hundred years ago this month, Henry Ford – Dearborn’s favorite son -- bought a weekly paper in Dearborn, used it to attack Jews. He turned the content into widely circulated books, which continue to sow hatred online today. There is no online aspect to The Historian. It’s like it’s 1990. Four pages By BILL McGRAW Henry Ford was peaking as a global celebrity at the conclusion of World War I, having introduced the $5 workday, assembly line and Model T -- revolutionary changes that transformed the way people lived. Reporters staked out the gates of his Fair Lane mansion. Ford loved the limelight and he constantly made news, even running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan as a Democrat in 1918. He narrowly lost. In the midst of his fame, Ford became a media mogul of sorts, forming the Dearborn Publishing Company and purchasing the sleepy Dearborn Independent weekly newspaper, which was dying of red ink. He published the paper under his name for the first time 100 years ago, in January 1919. Under Ford, the Independent became notorious for its unprecedented attacks on Jews. But Ford’s anti-Semitism traveled far beyond the Dearborn borders. Showing the marketing expertise that had catapulted Ford Motor into one of the world’s most famous brands, Henry Ford’s lieutenants vastly widened the reach of his attacks by packaging the paper’s anti-Semitic content into four books.
    [Show full text]
  • A Critique of the Fordism of the Regulation School
    A Critique of the Fordism of the Regulation School Ferruccio Gambino1 Introduction Some of the categories that people have used in recent years to describe the changes taking place in the world of production, such as Fordism, post-Fordism and immaterial production, have shown themselves to be rather blunt instruments.2 Here I intend to deal with the use of the concepts “Fordism” and “post-Fordism” by the regulation school, which has given a particular twist to the former term, and which coined ex novo the latter. The aim of my article is to help break the conflict-excluding spell under which the regulation school has succeeded in casting Fordism and post-Fordism. From midway through the 1970s, as a result of the writings of Michel Aglietta3 and then of other exponents of the regulation school, 1 The English version of this paper appeared in 1996 in Common Sense no. 19 and was subsequently published as a chapter in Werner Bonefeld (ed), Revolutionary Writing: Common Sense Essays In Post-Political Politics Writing, New York, Autonomedia, 2003. 2 For a timely critique of the term “immaterial production”, see Sergio Bologna, “Problematiche del lavoro autonomo in Italia” (Part I), Altreragioni, no. 1 (1992), pp. 10-27. 3 Michel Aglietta, (1974), Accumulation et régulation du capitalisme en longue période. L’exemple des Etats Unis (1870-1970), Paris, INSEE, 1974; the second French edition has the title Régulation et crises du capitalisme, Paris, Calmann- Lévy, 1976; English translation, A Theory of Capitalist Regulation: the US Experience, London and New York, Verso, 1979; in 1987 there followed a second English edition from the same publisher.
    [Show full text]
  • The Domestication of Ford Model T in Denmark
    Aalborg Universitet The Domestication of Ford Model T in Denmark Wagner, Michael Publication date: 2009 Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication from Aalborg University Citation for published version (APA): Wagner, M. (2009). The Domestication of Ford Model T in Denmark. Paper presented at Appropriating America Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. ? Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. ? You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain ? You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us at [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Downloaded from vbn.aau.dk on: September 24, 2021 The domestication of Ford Model T in Denmark By Michael F. Wagner, Institute for History and Social Studies, Aalborg University Ford Motor Company started to operate on a commercial level in Denmark from 1907 by appointing a sales agent, Bülow & Co., as importer of Ford automobiles to the Scandinavian market. The major breakthrough for the company on a global scale came with the introduction of the Model T by the end of 1908.
    [Show full text]