BORIS BURDA: how to get people behind the wheel
Tamara de Lempicka, Self-Portrait in a Green Bugatti, 1928 / one.bid
ATTENTION — QUESTION!
What exactly did Henry Ford start installing at a 30-degree angle to increase labor productivity?
ATTENTION — CORRECT ANSWER!
Toilet seats in factory restrooms — no extra seconds wasted sitting around!
A SLOW START
A
t the end of the 19th century, one of the greatest threats to humanity’s future was, believe it or not, horse manure. The only relatively reliable mode of transportation at the time was leaving so much waste on the streets of major cities that people were convinced that by the 1930s, the average street level would rise by at least 2–3 meters.
Of course, it’s easy to scoff now and claim that automobiles solved this problem. But for a long time, cars didn’t inspire much hope — they were seen as little more than a bizarre curiosity, an impractical and dangerous toy for wealthy show-offs who loved to make a spectacle of themselves.
When automobiles first appeared, a special British law required a man with a red flag to walk ahead of each vehicle to prevent it from endangering pedestrians and scaring horses. He had no trouble keeping pace — the maximum allowed speed on the road under this law was 6.45 km/h, and in cities, it was half that.
Early cars were far too expensive for the average person. Just look at the numbers: a worker would have to save their entire salary for nearly three years to afford a relatively cheap Panhard-Levassor, while a Rolls-Royce would require 14 years of earnings — every last penny. It wasn’t until the early 20th century that everything changed dramatically.
THROUGH PATENT WARS
The father of the «transportation revolution», though the rise of electric vehicles was still decades away, was Henry Ford, the chief engineer at Edison Electric Company. His gasoline-powered car had nothing to do with his job — he designed it in his free time as a hobby and decided to start production.
Right away, he ran into trouble. Inventor George Selden had patented the automobile as early as 1879 — not in detail, but in broad, basic principles. Yet he managed to obtain a court ruling that required all car manufacturers to buy a license from him! This was despite the fact that it was impossible to actually build a working car based on his patent.
Ford rebelled and fought an eight-year legal battle against Selden. He lost the initial case, but on appeal, the Supreme Court clarified that Selden’s patent only protected cars that exactly matched his vague description. Any modification and the patent was void! This ruling, which prevented Selden from taking a cut from every car produced, freed not only Ford but the entire auto industry.
Ford, methodical and persistent, continued developing new car models, assigning each one a letter designation. Naturally, the first was the «Ford A,» followed by models progressing through the alphabet. Some were more successful than others — by 1906, Ford managed to sell 2,194 cars, which was considered a major achievement at the time. But soon, that number would seem laughably small!
«TIN LIZZIE»
In 1906, Ford’s factory in Dearborn established a secret workshop with access granted to only a select few. It was led by two Hungarian immigrants — József Galamb and Eugene Farkas. Under their guidance, Ford’s twentieth model was developed and named after the 20th letter of the English alphabet — T. Production began in 1908 and lasted for 19 years.
The Model T was built on three core principles: simplicity, affordability, and low cost. Anything unnecessary was removed; initially, it didn’t even have a fuel pump, so it had to be driven in reverse uphill to ensure fuel reached the engine. When Ford discovered that the only part of the car that never broke was the central pivot of the front axle, he ordered it to be made weaker — why waste money on unnecessary durability?
One of the key factors behind the affordability of the Ford Model T was Ford’s revival of an invention originally used by Venetian shipbuilders in the 15th century — the assembly line. When cars were assembled in a fixed location, the process took nearly half a day; the conveyor system cut this time by more than half. Soon, Ford’s factories began building two separate assembly lines — one for taller workers and one for shorter workers, ensuring comfort for everyone.
The rapidly growing brand soon earned the nickname «Tin Lizzie» among the public. The name «Lizzie» was commonly used for workhorses, and indeed, the Model T became the reliable and affordable workhorse of America. A decade after its introduction, this model accounted for half of all cars in the country.
FORD’S WORKERS
To produce so many cars, Ford needed a massive workforce — and not just any workers. Soon after the Model T production line was established, Ford revolutionized labor practices. In 1914, the daily wage for assembly line workers was set significantly higher than the national average — no one earned less than $5 a day. At the time, a dollar had tremendous purchasing power, allowing Ford to attract the best workers.
But Ford didn’t stop there. His employees were also eligible to share in company profits, provided they adhered to a set of strict conditions — no excessive drinking, no gambling, no unpaid alimony, among other rules. However, by 1922, he relaxed some of these restrictions on worker behavior.
Ford’s high wages allowed his workers to buy the very cars they were building, boosting sales further. The price of the Model T kept dropping: in 1910, it cost $900, but by 1925, it was just $250 — the equivalent of three months’ wages for a Ford worker. (How many months would you need to work to buy a car today?) Naturally, Ford’s competitors had no choice but to raise wages as well.
A famous story illustrates Ford’s labor philosophy. When Nikita Khrushchev visited Ford’s factory, he reportedly asked why so many workers were washing windows since it didn’t directly contribute to production. Ford allegedly replied that clean windows allowed his workers to see the long lines of unemployed people waiting at the factory gates, eager for a job — a powerful motivator. This story may be apocryphal, but it certainly captures the essence of Ford’s approach to labor.
FORDISM AS AN IDEOLOGY
Ford’s factories were not just industrial powerhouses — they became a symbolic ideology. Italian communist Antonio Gramsci even introduced the term «Fordism» into political economy, describing it as a system based on high standardization, division of labor, and production centered around the assembly line. In the Soviet Union, there was even a slogan: «Socialism is Soviet power plus the Fordization of industry».
Various successful production concepts were compared to Ford’s ideas. For example, Milton Hershey’s decision to manufacture affordable, unfilled chocolate bars for mass consumption, or Coco Chanel’s «little black dress» — designed to be affordable, long-lasting, widely accessible, and, of course, black.
Interestingly, Ford’s early cars came in multiple colors, but in 1914, they became exclusively black. It is said that Ford declared: «A customer can have a Model T in any color, as long as it’s black».
The real reason? Only black Japanese lacquer dried fast enough to keep up with the assembly line. This practical decision never hurt sales.
Not everyone admired Ford’s principles. In one of his essays, George Orwell expressed concern that in a totalitarian society, books would be mass-produced like identical Model Ts dictated by bureaucrats. However, communist artist Diego Rivera was much more enthusiastic. He painted a worker’s apartment adorned with portraits of Marx, Lenin, and Ford — as if all three were revolutionaries of the same caliber.
The ultimate deification of Fordism appeared in Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World, where Ford is literally worshipped. Characters replace «Our Lord» with «Our Ford», cross themselves in the shape of a T, and even refer to London’s Big Ben as «Big Henry». While this was satire, it reflected the profound impact Fordism had on society.
Regardless of critiques, there’s no denying Ford’s genius — his innovations put first America, then the world, on wheels. With over 15 million Model Ts produced between 1908 and 1927, it remained the best-selling car in history until 1972, when it was finally surpassed by another legend — the Volkswagen Beetle. So, who’s next?
When copying materials, please place an active link to www.huxley.media
Select the text and press Ctrl + Enter
