Anti-competition Quotes
Ford was then 74 years old and had become a very different man than in his youth when he was the hero of labor. He was very paranoid at this time. He even thought that financiers were actually backing the labor unions because their purpose was to go to war against Hitler who Ford greatly admired and supported. See {642379}. He claimed that the way they would do it is to fund the labor unions so most workers would join unions. This he thought would eliminate competition and lower workers’ wages. When workers’ wages were pushed low enough, the workers would demand American entry into the war to create government spending on armaments and a labor shortage to drive wages up again. There was not a single financier who was actually paying or lending any money to labor unions, and most industrialists other than Ford complained that labor unions would always demand higher wages. Ford’s son Edsel was the chief operating officer of Ford Motor Company, and did his best to work around his father to keep the company healthy and deal with a terrible labor relations problem his father caused.
The only previous source of light in America had been whale oil or candles—both very expensive. Oil was discovered in Pennsylvania and refinery techniques developed to produce Kerosene. (Gasoline was too explosive and dangerous for home use.) Everyone’s standard of living depended on Kerosene at the time and John D. Rockefeller controlled the price everywhere except New York. There were no monopoly or antitrust laws when he gobbled up his competitors and he rapidly became the richest man in America and one of the most hated. His abuse of the system at the time led to the government regulation of monopolies and the antitrust laws. It was very courageous for the Atlantic Monthly to publish this article, as Rockefeller’s power extended all over the nation—but less in New York where the magazine was published.
