When you get a whole country — as did ours — thinking that Washington is a sort of heaven and behind its clouds dwell omniscience and omnipotence, you are educating that country into a dependent state of mind which augurs ill for the future. Our help does not come from Washington, but from ourselves[71]; our help may, however, go to Washington as a sort of central distribution point where all our efforts are coordinated for the general good. We may help the Government; the Government cannot help us.

(…)

The moral fundamental is man’s right in his labor <and the products of labor>. This is variously stated. It is sometimes called “the right of property”. It is sometimes masked in the command, “Thou shalt not steal”. It is the other man’s right in his property that makes stealing a crime. When a man has earned his bread, he has a right to that bread. If another steals it, he does more than steal bread; he invades a sacred HUMAN right (put in capitals by the authors).

If we cannot produce we cannot have — but some say if we produce it is only for the capitalists. Capitalists who become such because they provide better means of production are of the foundation of society. They have really nothing of their own[72]. They merely manage property for the benefit of others. Capitalists who become such through trading in money are a temporarily necessary evil. They may not be evil at all if their money goes to production. If their money goes to complicating distribution — to raising barriers between the producer and the consumer — then they are evil capitalists and they will pass away when money is better adjusted to work; and money will become better adjusted to work when it is fully realized that through work and work alone may health, wealth, and happiness inevitably be secured (put in bold type by the authors) (Introduction. “What Is the Idea?”).

And the above quotation makes it clear that the right to work naturally implies the right to the products of one’s labor. But because in the multiindustrial production and consumption system work is performed collectively the individual is entitled only to his own share of the work’s product. Besides, many products are discrete[73] and many even non-discrete products are consumed discretely by portions or collectively[74], therefore the right to receive the objects produced in most cases cannot be actualized in natural form.

This circumstance leads to the following question:

What is the best way to adjust money (which is in itself nothing), or rather money circulation, to labor and consumer relations between people in the systemic integrity of multiindustrial production and distribution of products? For it is exactly the efficiency of this systemic integrity that determines and predestines many things regarding the welfare of society and each of its members.

Ford asks the same question only in a somewhat different wording because he discusses its different interconnected aspects in different parts of his text.

While analyzing the system of self-regulation of production and distribution that has formed in the USA and the West in the course of history in order to answer the many-sided question we pointed to above, Ford adheres to the systemic views he has put forward earlier. He puts it straight:

«I only want to know whether the greatest good is being rendered to the greatest number» (Ch. 12. “Money — Master or Servant?”).

And this is a clear and unambiguous display of supporting bolshevism which acts to the benefit of the majority («bolshinstvo» in Russian) of laborers who do not want anyone to parasite on their life and labor.

Digression 4 :

The Moral and Ethic Results of Bourgeois Reforms in Russia

«I recall an incident in Siberia where I once lived in exile. It happened in spring, at the time of spring tide. About thirty people went to the river to catch the logs carried away by the raging great river. In the evening they came back to the village, but one of their companions was missing. I asked them where that man was and they answered indifferently that he «remained there». I asked again: «How is it so, he remained?» and they answered with the same indifference: «What’s the point of asking, he must have drowned». And the next moment one of them started hurrying somewhere saying that he «had to water the mare». I reproached him for feeling more sorry for a beast than for a man. One of them answered backed up by all the others: «What’s the point of feeling sorry for them people? New people we can make any time, but a mare… it’s not that easy to make a new mare» (put in bold type by the authors: this moral attitude that is widespread among the simple people reveals the reasons for abuse of power after 1917). This might be a small and insignificant detail, which is nevertheless very characteristic. It seems to me that indifference towards people, towards personnel shared by some of our executives, their inability to value people is a remnant of that strange attitude of people towards other people <of that horrible attitude, to be more precise> which was demonstrated in the incident in distant Siberia that I had recollected a bit earlier.

WE MUST FINALLY UNDERSTAND THAT OF ALL THE VALUABLE CAPITAL IN THE WORLD PEOPLE, PERSONNEL ARE THE MOST VALUABLE AND THE MOST DECISIVE CAPITAL. WE MUST UNDERSTAND THAT IN OUR PRESENT SITUATION «PERSONNEL TURNS THE SCALE…» (put in capitals by the authors. A quotation from Stalin’s address to graduates of military academies made on May 4, 1934).

And it is truly so: «Personnel turns the scale». Those who disagree with this statement made by the outstanding Bolshevik manager, man of state thinking and economist, Joseph Stalin, can find consolation in a different formula, which is of a slave-owning nature in its essence:

«Assets[75] are resources owned by company «A». And though the EMPLOYEES of this COMPANY are probably its MOST VALUABLE RESOURCE (put in capitals by the authors) they nevertheless (are/ are not) a resource subject to accounting. Underline the correct answer» (Robert N. Antoni, professor at Harvard university Business school, “Essentials of Accounting”).[76]

Though various equipment and technologies are indeed important, in any sphere of maintenance of modern civilization it is not the money, equipment, technology and software, not the lifeless knowledge contained in books, not the infrastructures that do the work. It is the living people who control the whole thing and contribute their productive labor (whether manual or intellectual).

At the same time the overwhelming majority of products and services needed for an individual’s, a family’s, a nation’s life in modern civilization are of such a nature that they cannot be produced on one’s own by anyone. Manufacturing them in good quality requires the coordinated effort of dozens of enterprises and agencies:

They must work «as a single person» who is something like a multitude of personalities existing simultaneously. This «person» should perform the elements of the common work (the manufacturing process) in different places with proper professional skills and industry.

If this is not the case then any projects and ventures end up unrealizable (at the maximum) or at the least the quality of their products does not satisfy consumers and their participants themselves, depending on how far they were from this ideal. In some cases the project fails because one man out of the thousands of its participants has made a single mistake that passed unnoticed or if noticed uncorrected by other workers; or this one man could knowingly do his part of the common job carelessly.