Author Description

Henry Ford’s underlying goal in life is to create a better automobile for the masses. After becoming overwhelmingly successful, Ford faces the challenge to manufacture more cars, but with the same labor force. The moving assembly line is then implemented to increase manufacturing. But it creates boredom, which elevates worker turnover and dampens profits. He then incentivizes work by doubling the daily wage and shortening the workweek. At a time when Ford Motor Company only supports “paternalistic” welfare capitalism, i.e., company unions and not trade unions, he learns that labor expansion demands additional structure in the workplace. Ford then spawns a Service Department comprised of 2,000 pugilistic roughnecks to maintain order and proliferate productivity. His conspiratorial beliefs facilitate creation of the Sociological Department that introduces compulsory after-hours English courses to “Americanize” workers, since he equates lower productivity with foreign languages. The department also inspects workers’ homes to identify signs of boarding laborers, employed spouses, gambling and drinking, and not having a savings plan. Ruling by fear, he attains the greater productivity needed for his own enrichment and resists trade unions, but at the cost of reigning terror on his own employees. Meanwhile, the tectonic rift between Henry and his jazz-loving Gatsby-esque son Edsel deepens with the growth of popular music, which is a “Jewish monopoly.” After losing a US senate race and throwing in the towel on a presidential bid after learning he’d get few votes from New York and other Midwest states, he purchases the Dearborn Independent newspaper and publishes weekly antisemitic rants and his tome “The International Jew.” The book is translated into several languages and becomes an inspirational read among Hitler youth. Ford then receives the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, which is Nazi Germany's highest decoration for foreigners. The newspaper is distributed to hundre