Fordism

Fordism is the name given to the economic and social system pioneered by Henry Ford, and it became a shorthand for mass production built on the moving assembly line. Ford took the scientific management methods of Frederick Taylor and applied them not to a single worker but to a whole line of workers at his Highland Park, Michigan, factory. The system paired falling prices with high wages: the Model T dropped in price while the five dollar day of 1914 let employees afford the product they built. It also covered rationalized labor, vertical and horizontal integration of production as at the Rouge Plant, and company efforts to shape the home life and culture of workers. Critics and scholars, notably Antonio Gramsci in his essay on Americanism and Fordism, treated it as a wider form of social order, and later theorists used the word for the postwar industrial economy. It remains a debated label, since admirers saw efficiency and generosity while unionists saw relentless pace and control.