Topic > Henry Ford and the Fall of Fordlandia

1920s America is characterized by booming industrialization and increasing social changes led by Henry Ford and his automobile company. Ford's name was known worldwide and he was considered the richest man alive at the time, which gave him much social influence and international business capabilities. Its business generated a rich economy and was known for its fair treatment of workers. Henry Ford was well known and respected in America for introducing the assembly line that revolutionized automobile manufacturing and transformed his business into one of the largest companies in the world. The decline of Ford's reputation came after his business-oriented expansion into Brazil, hampered by his American ideology and lack of worldly and historical knowledge. Fordlandia is a great example of how American capitalism is an agent of foreign policy and without adequate knowledge of expansionism, it can easily lead to the destruction of foreign economy and harmony in civilization. As demonstrated time and again throughout history, the American ideology of expansionism aimed at replicating an American society is unsuccessful and leads to disasters abroad. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay In 1928, Henry Ford's lucrative auto business was missing a crucial component to the overall auto parts monopoly, which was rubber. Britain held the major export of rubber which inflated the costs of the new Ford Model A cars produced that year. After an earlier failure to expand his business into Alabama, Ford came into contact with Dionísio Bentes, governor of the Brazilian state of Pará while he was visiting the United States. Ford was interested in the Amazon jungle that previously drove global rubber production and contained easy exports via the Amazon River. For what he saw to be a great deal, Ford took this opportunity and after negotiations purchased an area called "Boa Vista" of approximately two and a half million acres. Ford had two main interests in Brazil with this deal: a cheap source of latex that would allow the Ford Motor Company to produce Ford brand tires, and the creation of an American-style utopian city in his new homeland of Brazil, called ever since in then Fordlandia. .Upon arrival, the reality of the Amazon jungle hits Ford's skilled team of conquerors. They were tasked with months of clearing the Amazon to reach their site, which was infested with foreign diseases, insects, animals, and worldly accomplishments. Problems arose due to the geography of the site and the lack of botanical knowledge of the Amazon. The land was rocky and barren and the timber from the Amazon was unusable for their tasks. They had to build a water source and pipes to get it miles away. Diseases struck most of the workers upon arrival. The materials arrived weeks after arrival. After dealing with teething problems, an attempt was made to build Fordlandia with everything Ford deemed necessary to succeed, based on his well-oiled, running machine at home in Detroit, Michigan. The site was equipped with large industrial buildings, water tanks, even a large bell tower to signal the start and end of the working day to workers. They built American-style homes as merchandise for his employees. The Amazon landscape has been torn to shreds and invaded by insects harmful to the growth of rubber trees. Furthermore, the buildings were not built to suit the Amazon climate and theContractors were looking for new materials to withstand the intense heat and humidity. After that, the company quickly hired an army of workers based on false promises of home accommodations and high wages. Although the Ford industry prided itself on fair treatment of workers and high wages, the reality of segregated labor, racism, and mistreatment of workers, and serious authoritarian-style management became evident in Ford's new Ford industry. Brazilian workers were forced to live in American-style homes but had different social scenarios and privileges than American workers. In the workers' cafe, their eating place, the skilled workers and supervisors were separated from the manual workers, which represented a clear power imbalance and a high degree of segregation that upset most employees. Furthermore, Brazilian men were blinded by the promise of healthcare, which turned out to be a scheduled treatment for pesticides or worms that doctors did not check before prescribing – probably based on their racist determination to consider men sick. There were obvious privileges for skilled American workers with high-ranking status, such as alcohol and prostitutes financed by the Ford company. In 1928, riots broke out for the first time in Fordlandia, but they were quelled, leaving the site militarily equipped and in fear. The most significant riot due to their mistreatment occurred in 1930. Prior to this damaging riot, the workers' bar underwent a major change, moving from waiters serving their food to cafeteria-style dining, which upset many employees and may have been it was the last straw. On December 20, an argument emerged in the workers' bar between supervisor Kaj Ostenfield and Manuel Caetano, the first Brazilian worker. Kaj Ostenfield and his support American employees fled the scene back to America with the help of the Brazilian military. This argument resulted in the overthrow of the company by the Brazilian workforce and $25,000 worth of damage to the site. At home, the Ford Company was also in decline and the American economy was in chaos. Ford's auto industry profits were nearly halved in 1945. More deeply and personally, Henry Ford's true character emerged, validating his racist actions with his support of anti-Semitism during World War II Germany and his continued mistreatment of workers at home. Once again, Ford promised increased pay for workers only to then cut their hours in half. He belittled Brazilian employees and American politicians on news channels and even spoke out against a change in the foreign policy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the newly elected American president. The Great Depression was in full force in the 1940s, when employment was at an all-time low, people were starving, and suicide rates skyrocketed. Even in the 1940s Ford attempted several times to reconstruct his utopian fantasy. After continuous failures, in November 1945, the Americans recovered and left. Unsurprisingly, they existed with the same cowardly behavior they had arrived with, without notice of departure and without cleaning up their mess. In an effort to bring light and support to society, a notable restoration for society came from a man named Diego Rivera, a muralist who captured the sentiments of American society at the time. Funded primarily by Edsel Ford in an attempt to repair the damage to society's morale, Rivera's murals changed the negative perspective on industrialization that most Americans had at that time..