Fordism
[1] It describes an ideology of advanced capitalism centered around the American socioeconomic systems in place in the post-war economic boom.
Fordism is "the eponymous manufacturing system designed to produce standardized, low-cost goods and afford its workers decent enough wages to buy them.
After five years of producing automobiles, Ford introduced the Model T, which was simple and light but sturdy enough to drive on the country's primitive roads.
Furthermore, Ford substantially increased his workers' wages[9] to combat rampant absenteeism and employee turnover, which approached 400% annually, which had the byproduct of giving them the means to become customers.
According to historian Charles S. Maier, Fordism proper was preceded in Europe by Taylorism, a technique of labor discipline and workplace organization, based upon supposedly scientific studies of human efficiency and incentive systems.
[4] The Great Depression blurred the utopian vision of American technocracy, but World War II and its aftermath revived the ideal.
Antonio and Bonanno argue that Fordism peaked in the post-World War II decades of American dominance and mass consumerism but collapsed from political and cultural attacks on the people in the 1970s.
Antonio and Bonanno further suggest that negative elements of Fordism, such as economic inequality, remained, allowing related cultural and environmental troubles, which inhibited America's pursuit of democracy to surface.
Hughes quotes Joseph Stalin's Foundations of Leninism:[16] "American efficiency is that indomitable force which neither knows nor recognizes obstacles; which continues on a task once started until it is finished, even if it is a minor task; and without which serious constructive work is inconceivable...The combination of the Russian revolutionary sweep with American efficiency is the essence of Leninism.
"[19] A religion based on the worship of Henry Ford is a central feature of the technocracy in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, where the principles of mass production are applied to the generation of people as well as to industry.
