What was Ford’s advice? In 1926, he wrote My Life and Work, and in that book he stated, “Our help does not come from Washington, but from ourselves. The government is a servant and never should be anything but a servant.”Ford still did not want a government bailohat get attachec.ut, with all the strings t
Do People Matter?
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| Henry Ford , Thomas Edison and John Burroughs in the "ubiquitous" Model T |
Not according to some critics of free enterprise. Keynesian economist Robert Thomas once said, “Individual entrepreneurs, whether alone or as archetypes, don’t matter!” Thomas elaborated, “And indeed if they don’t matter, the reason, I suggest, is that the supply of entrepreneurs throughout American history, combined with the institutions that permitted–indeed fostered–intense competition, was sufficiently elastic to reduce the importance of any particular individual.”
In other words, if Henry Ford hadn’t come along and popularized the automobile, someone else right behind him would have done so in roughly the same way. Entrepreneurs are not particularly valuable, according to Robert Thomas. Without Ford, another mechanic would have “put a car in every garage.” Ford was merely in the right place at the right time.
If you believe that, then it logically follows that tax rates should be high. Why reward an entrepreneur for doing something now that someone else will do just as well very soon? In this view, government should be actively involved; bureaucrats can easily substitute for entrepreneurs, and the reward will go to the state, which can redistribute it perhaps more equally.
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