False conclusion. Mass production was inevitable. Ford didn't care about destroying independent livelihoods. He simply needed people to build his cars. And obviously not everyone worked in the "dinghy factories." How else would you suggest we could have gone about making cars or other "dinghies"? I would argue mass production and the resultant huge amounts of wealth created allowed for more people to establish their own independent livelihoods.
I never said mass production was a bad thing. On the contrary: I said, “Mass production is not a bad thing.”
A rising tide does lift all boats. Indeed, even the poor in this country are quite well-off in an absolute sense.
But tell me, how many of us - now that we have our bare necessities and even many luxuries, now that we’re wealthy compared to the average Chinese or our grandparents or whomever - how many have said “I have enough now” and gone back to living independent lives?
Aren’t we all instead chasing after a moving goal? Once we all became so rich as to afford one of Henry Ford’s Model A automobiles, did we stop there? Did we say, “Thanks for the job, Mr. Ford. And here’s the money to pay for the car. I’ll be heading back to my own independent livelihood now.”? (There’s a reason Huxley chose Ford as the god of his “Brave New World”.)
Sure, everyone is entitled to profit from his work and his ideas; I don’t begrudge anyone the fruit of his labors. But at some point corporatism began manufacturing demand to keep us in the factories in much the same way money-lending does to keep us paying interest. (Ever wonder why the Law of Moses forbade the Jews from charging one another interest? Or what the purpose of Jubilee was?)
We’re sharecroppers. With every harvest that supplies our needs and wants, we enrich the wealthy landowner and ensure the perpetuation of our condition. Yet we defend him and say, “But without him, we would starve!”
Silly serfs we are.