Henry Ford hates cars

Odd to think it could be true, but Henry Ford did hate cars. He hated the city. He hated his factory. He hated unions, the middle class, demanding workers, picky customers, and progress.  All direct and indirect results of his life's great work. His work was born out of a desire to elevate man and free him from his daily toil.

In the beginning Henry Ford hated the backbreaking work of farming. He hated the inefficiencies he saw in manual labor and the lack of production that seemed to come from the heavy labor of toiling in the fields. He spent his days tinkering with machines, taking apart watches and rebuilding them, all with the desire to create machines that would free man of his human burdens.

One would think that when Henry Ford first began making cars he never could have dreamed he would be so wildly successful. To read his autobiography My Life and Work you realize that not only did he know he would be successful, he was utterly sure of it. He burned bridges and never looked back. He quit his job working for Edison. He fired investors, disbanded his original company and started a new one.

Once he finally made the Model T, he knew that the secret to his success would be to

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driven by a need to elevate the common man from his misery of heavy labor and toiling in the fields, commericalized a revolutionarily cheap automobile and ushered in a new era of american consumerism. His massive Detroit factory at the River Rouge was a testament to modern industrialism. Which he basically invented. He elevated the working man by paying him a handsome wage, The $5 day. He introduced assembly line manufacturing - maximizing production - and creating hundereds of thousands of jobs for the unskilled laborer.

Yet he hated everything he created in a way. Hated the city. Hated modern life, and demanding customers. He loved his Model T and his original buggy, and spent millions recreating his boyhood home in intricate detail. What does this tell us about the nature of invention? Did Ford wish that his life's work could somehow be undone? Like Einstein and the atomic bomb. Had he unleashed something on civilization that would advance humanity but toward a worse way of life.

Today, cars are a necessity of modern life. Without a car you simply cannot compete The driving force of Ford's life created something he didn't want. its a put the toothpaste back in the tubes type of deal.