I didn’t know this until I saw the battle, but where Marx calls himself a “Lincoln Letter Inking Proletarian” that’s a reference to the fact that after the election of 1864, Marx wrote Lincoln congratulating him on his victory. It’s weird to think that not only were they alive at the same time, but they wrote each other.
They didn't write "to each other"- Marx wrote a letter to Lincoln on behalf of the International Workingman's Association, and Lincoln's representative (Charles Francis Adams- grandson of John Adams and son of John Quincy) wrote a thank you reply. That's really it, but some people tried to make a big deal out of it for either ideological or monetary gain. On a personal level, Marx thought Lincoln was too soft and bourgeois, and hoped that his assassination would lead a vengeful Andrew Johnson to start a revolutionary war against the South (he was obviously disappointed).
@@jonathancampbell5231 him and me both tbh, that would be bloody as hell and horrible BUT a lot of our modern political issues stem directly from the softness of reconstruction and the failure of republicans of the era to properly root out the systemic blight of racism. if more of the south had had reconstructions as radical as key west, for instance, the south would be a FAR different place, and the US government would probably be better. That said, I think it's a dumb gamble and I think marxists are prone to making it too often, a la Zizek's hope in a resurgent left after trump. He was right, it turns out, but that doesn't change that it was a crazy accelerationist ploy.
@@candyh4284racism doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s probably because I’m not an Evolutionist. In evolution it makes sense: you come from nothing; you fight to get what you want; everything and everyone is trying to kill you or outdo you; you need to fight or scare off competitors who want to impregnate your women; anything different is seen as a threat; etc. Meanwhile, I just believe “God said He made every human being Himself; He made them with purpose & intention; He made them to be made in His image; God set forth very clear ways on how to handle certain issues, the color of the skin of person (outside of sicknesses) was not one of them. Therefore, if the way you look was not only not a problem to God, but also made intentionally by God in His own image, it makes no logical sense to cause harm to another based on these traits alone. Rather it makes greater sense with this basis of religious understanding, that there should be unity among the different looking individuals while greater judgment is placed on the actions and intentions of the individuals. For when you come from nothing, you have nothing to lose. When you come from God, you have reason for compassion.
@@stevelucky7579 Man is no more inherently combative and competitive than chimp is inherently Catholic. It's something you *become* after interacting with your environment. Man is naturally three things: rational, emotional, and malleable. That's it. Everything else is environment. We are sold ideologies that tell us, incorrectly, that we're inherently the people we are. There is a certain essence of "us" that's undying, but that's just not true. We are dust, but that doesn't mean we have to be unholy. That doesn't mean God didn't make us. If we are dust, I'll ask you, what are the plants? Dust as well, certainly? What about when we eat them? Well, they're not dust within our stomachs, but then they become "us"-dust. So we're a collection of things we've eaten, places we've been, and people we've loved. Is that not divine? And then when we die, and our souls go where they may, our bodies stay here, and become dust again, for someone else to use. Why can't that also be holy? Why can't God be in evolution? All evolution is the statement that "All beings are a little bit different, and overtime those differences come to make new types of beings because of their environments and the specific challenges they face." Why can't God be selective pressures? Population bottlenecks? K curves and J curves? Is life any less valuable because He designed it smaller than us, slimmer than us, thicker than us, taller than us? Surely He didn't design me exactly like Him, because if He designed all of us exactly like Him, we'd all look the same. In which case, why does it matter if He's actually a giraffe, or a watermelon with psychic powers, or a prokaryote? Doesn't it strike you as arrogant to presume the book (written and assembled by MEN) that proclaims you specifically the product of infinity is literal, rather than aphorism? God is everything, everywhere, all the time, forever, all. The Absolute. And you'd really presume to see your own face in the clouds? Evolution, this infinite cycle of dust becoming oceans of things, all unique in character, all different, and all beautiful in whatever way they will be said to be. Is that not the most compelling evidence of something divine? Something beyond us, beyond anything, beyond EVERYthing? This is infinitely more miraculous than some large man-shaped thing "letting there be light." This is a piece of beauty that is unsurpassable, unknowable to mortals. We just get to be a part of it, to partake in our dust, leave, and go elsewhere. If you cannot find God in what you immediately find around you, you are not seeing God everywhere, where He most certainly is. And if we are made in the image of God, and we are to one day become maggots, then we are tasked with seeing ourselves in the faces of all creatures, from the smallest microbe to the largest blue whale (they're the largest creatures we have any record of ever existing, it's pretty miraculous that we exist in the same time as them, you should read up on them).
@@stevelucky7579As someone who believes on evolution racism still doesn't make any sense, since race is a social construct and doesn't actually affect anyone's physical or non physical attributes. Evolutionary theory doesn't really give any valid reason for racism to exist, since racism is inherently illogical.
9:47 Karl's line of "Beating me is like your city in Brazil, nuts!" is referring to Fordlândia. Henry Ford made a prefabricated town in Northern Brazil to control the rubber production in the area. However, due to lack of infrastructure and knowledge of tropical agriculture, the town was abandoned by 1934, marking ot a disastrous project.
That was also where he tried to control what workers could think, drink, and eat. He tried to make all his workers celibate, sober vegetarians. Dude even tried to ban soccer. In Brazil. One of the reasons it collapsed is because people found out about it and literally showed up with riverboats full of booze and hookers.
Henry openly mocked and sabotaged Edsel to his staff and reporters even going to the point of opening a competing company. I think the stress and a bunch of other lifestyle factors led to Edsel's stomach cancer.
irritation such as ulceration is known to increase cancer risk iirc, I don't know how much of it was purely "Dad-based stress" or what, but my guess is a lot of it was environmental. That said, there's something to be said about how his dad manufactured that very environment where the combined stresses of industrialization and paternal abuse/ridicule are forced on this dude.
I love how Marx called Ford a fascist and he was like "Yeah. So about this communism thing...". Even if you don't think Ford was a fascist, straight up ignoring criticism gotta be the most Ford thing he could do lol
@@Last555555555 War is very profitable. Especially when you're building an invasion force big enough to conquer Europe. Just because he made some money off them doesn't mean he supports their politics.
I think in this battle Marx definitely won. Ford just roasted Marx for having bad people look up to him, whereas Marx roasted Ford for BEING a bad person.
I think that's the best way I've seen it put so far. That and the fact that Ford mostly made comments about him being smelly and poor. Very on brand for him.
@@TranJack123You're right. In his personal life, he certainly was no upstanding citizen. But he was nowhere near as terrible as the people who took his basic ideals and perverted them into violent dictatorships.
So yeah, Ford's employees did get shot up in what is known today as the "Ford Massacre" (or Ford Hunger March), where basically Henry ordered his security forces and the local PD to attack the employees on strike. I think some 5 of the protestors died, and 22-25 more were severely injured. It was an absolute tragedy, especially considering it was covered by the right to peaceful assembly. It was a huge problem and started to wake America up to the idea of what corporate money could do to this country, in fact it was one of the events that resulted in the NLRA of 1935 to be made into law.
I feel like it was the opposite. Ford just called him stinky and made personal insults while marx attacked him for being a fascist and super capitalist lol
3:40 Henry Ford as a young child liked to take apart watches and rebuild them, so I think that's what they refer to. Maybe Im wrong. In any case, great reaction! We need more ERB reactions! P.S when reacting to erb, each time you pause it might be better to rewind a couple of seconds before you unpause, that way you don't miss anything important.
Knox Hill, starting with his review of FOrd VS Marx, decided to watch each part first and then look at it in detail. Which, imho, is a good middle ground between "Watchit all and talka about it afterwarrds" and "Pause every line"
wasnt in the rainforst, northern of brazil isnt the Amazon rainforest, northern is most tropical and ''cerrado'' areas, its the north of my country and a very few parts of northest with the rainforest.
Fun fact: Edsel Ford had a son named William Clay Ford Sr. He married Martha Firestone, the granddaughter of Harvey Firestone, the founder of the Firestone Tire Company. William owned the NFL's Detroit Lions, and when he passed in 2014, Martha took over ownership of the Lions. Before the start of the 2020 season, Martha passed ownership of the Lions to her and William's daughter, Sheila Ford Hamp. Sheila's brother, William Jr. is the executive chairman of the Ford Motor Company.
And the Firestones are from my neck of the woods. Harvey was from Columbiana, which is about 15 minutes from me. I ran cross country in Firestone Park when we had meets against that school.
I love the double meaning on “when a leader likes you, that’s a red flag”. Meaning a bad sign and also the well known flag for communism being a red field with something on it (hammer and sickle normally). It makes me wonder if the term could come from McCarthyism and the red scare.
Vice versa. McCarthyism was called the "Red Scare" because it was fearmongering about the "reds," a pejorative for socialists due to their prior association with the color red. Socialists were (as far as I know, probably further still but I'm no historian) using the red flag (just a sheet dyed red, symbolic of the "blood of the people") in the Paris commune, commonly regarded as the first communist experiment. Roses, likewise, have long been a symbol of democratic socialism, being both red, beautiful, and delicate.
The modern term red flag as a metaphor does have roots in McCarthyism and the Cold War. There are earlier instances of literal red flags used for warning signs but they're not related to the modern term.
In March 7th, 1932 five unemployed auto workers were killed by police and Ford security guards in Dearborn, Michigan. In what became known as 'The Ford Hunger March' or 'The Ford Massacre'.
Another reason socialism has its reputation is that it almost always arose in violent reorganizations (revolution, coupe, etc.) which also has a tendency to allow ambitious authoritarians to take power in the chaos. It’s important to note socialism doesn’t require centralization or command economics
In fact I would argue socialism in inherently decentralised since it’s based on the withers controlling the means of production The states justified it by saying the government is workers but that’s obviously not the case that’s just authoritarianism
Modern communist theory (Marxism-Leninism or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism) posits that the only way a socialist government can be effectively put in place is through a revolution. The ruling class of capitalism has the political system moulded to their will and they won't give up that control just because the people demand it. And, even when some sort of democratic transition into socialism is attempted, outside interference is quick to nip it in the bud. The 1960's and 70's saw many left-wing governments elected in Latin America (only one of them was an outright socialist, Salvador Allende in Chile) and the United States immediately funded military coups to overthrow them, for fear of losing control of their "backyard".
Socialism could only win via violence, take Cuba for example, you think that slave owning goverment would allow socialists to take power democratically? Or what about China and the Soviet Union, the practicall feudal russian tsarist state wouldn't dare to let them take power.
@@jmurray1110The state is part of the public sector, socialism is where workers and the public own the means of production, hence it naturally falls that in socialism, the state takes the role. Even if the state is in the form of trade unions, it is still a state.
I think it should be noted that the textile mills that Engels ran were his family’s and they really pushed him into working within the family business, which he would off and on resist. However, he also served the revolutionaries in 1848 working under future Union general August Willich
Also, his family didn't own the mills entirely, just a major ownership share of the company. A share that Engels eventually inherited, but under the terms of the will, he was unable to sell it or otherwise cash out of it, he pretty much just received dividends from it.
Edsel Ford didn't actually do a bad job as an exec. However, he had to contend with his father's constant interference. He was long dead before the Edsel Ford auto was designed. It was Henry Ford who came up with it as a tribute to his son's memory. Possibly born out of a sense of guilt for how he had treated him.
Both father and son were long dead by the time the Edsel came about. Edsel died in 1943, Henry in 1947. Edsel came out in the mid 50s. I looked it up after making the video.
Mr Terry did a great coverage of this as a history teacher, Scru Face Jean broke it down bar for bar as a battle rapper, and now you as a historian! This is great!
Weirdly enough Knox Hill also broke it down into a lot more depth than I expected from him, really going into detail on the character of both Ford and Marx.
8:55 Idk how I haven't seen this mentioned in other comment sections before but the reference to "Big Brother" from 1984 is a nice dig against Ford who Marx exposed as being a fascist in the battle
Hi Chris, well a lot of Karl Marx's ideas were formulated here in Manchester, and it is here that he met Engels. They saw the poverty that mill owners put the working people through whilst raking in massive profits for themselves (as they saw it). There was clamour for political reform, but the establishment (scareed of a French style revolution still fresh in memories) had brutally suppressed any form of protest for reform. In August 1819 an organised protests about the lack of representation in towns of the industrial North of England, when an "empty hill housing only of sheep in the South had 2 MPs! This had resulted in a massacre by the local yeomanry (there were at that time no police) of protestors in St Peters field which became know as Peterloo (in reference to the battle in 1815), where over 600 people were casualties including a boy under 2 (William Fides) who was knocked from his mother's arms. This eventually lead to the Reform Act of 1832 which got rid of the 'rotten boroughs ' as they were called. On a similar point is it any wonder that Sir Robert Peel (as the MP of the nearby town of Bury) created an organised the Metropolitan Police when he became prime minister to deal with public order in 1829. Anyway back to Marx....Specifically Marx was looking at the poverty of the industrial cities and he met his fellow German, Engles who was examining production methodology for his family Textile business in Germany. They picked up on one specific location here in Manchester, charmingly named "Angel Meadow" had the worst recorded death rate in England for a many years, it was so bad that the local church yard of St Michael and all angels was closed on the direct orders of the Queen and paved over ..... To stop the soil being taken away for agricultural purposes (humans remains apparently make excellent fertiliser) and to reduce the spread of diseases like Cholea, Typhoid and Diphtheria that so many had died from. As a result the Library of Cheathams School (which the world oldest public library) in Manchester is the location where they penned the Communist Manifesto, which so many pinned their colours to only to be disappointed in the way it was interpreted by fallable human beings.
I’m pretty sure that “city in Brazil” bit is about the Americanesque city in the middle of Amazon that Ford tried to build to have cheap rubber factories. It was even called “Fordlândia”
It was a pretty close battle.... right up till Marx's final section where he just annihilated Ford. The only thing that springs to mind not addressed was the Edsel bit and that yeah, Ford did sabotage his kids ability to run the company, officially stepping down but behind the scenes making clear he didn't like how his kid was running things and messing with his ability to actually be in charge. And just in general being a dick of a dad.
Close? Not really. Ford relied on ad hominem for most of it, his best attack was "hey look at who admires you" but coming from the guy admired by literally Adolph Hitler that point is lost...
But they missed that even in this, Marx was far worse. He boned the maid, knocked her up, and refused to acknowledge his son or lift him from his life of poverty--even in his will.
I definitely recommend watching the behind the scenes video. Both Nice Peter and Epic Lloyd go into details about some of the research they did on their characters and how and why they portrayed them like they did in the ERB.
10:54 On March 7, 1932, Dearborn police and Ford private security opened fire on a crowd of unemployed auto workers who were marching for better worker's rights. 4 were killed, more than 60 were injured, and a 5th would die later from his injuries.
"Everything is great on paper until humans get involved." My hs history teacher said the same thing. Another history teacher used to say that Marx was a great thinker, but did not account for human shortcomings.
It's not "not accounting" as much as theorizing human relations change to conform to the society they live in. If you are born and raised in a capitalist system, you're taught to think like a capitalist.
@@LucianCanad..The problem is, there hasn't been a true Communist society as the only ones that come close are hunter gatherer tribes. As for Socialism, it seems there hasn't been a place where it has fully worked out successfully. It only resulted in more bodies, or getting couped cause of foreign intervention.
@@chrissant6277 If you look up interviews with Russians who were alive back then, many describe the sense of community and hope for the future they felt. Before Boris Yeltsin's coup officially dissolved the USSR, a referendum conducted in most republics showed the population overwhelmingly supported maintaining the Union. Most Cubans today still defend the revolution and its accomplishments, as demonstrated by a recent attempt at a color revolution that got outprotested by pro-socialism Cubans. Despite how the western world depicts life in socialism, no country lasts long unless a sizeable amount of the population stands by its way of life (Althusser has some great work about Ideological State Apparatuses). Don't get me wrong, running what's essentially a nation-sized counterculture movement is tricky business, and not everything done in the name of preserving a revolution was done correctly or cleanly. What Marxists strive for is to properly apply the Marxian method (dialectical and historical materialism) to everything that happened and create and improve ways to make those new social relations form as smoothly as possible. But, crucially, those changes take time to develop, the same way people didn't go to sleep in feudalism and woke up in the Renaissance the very next day. People give us hell for saying "communism has never been implemented", but we say that because we believe a communist society will only fully develop once capitalism has faded into history. Until then, we lay the groundwork for that new society by progressively fixing capitalism's flaws, which can only happen after the class-conscious working class has taken state power.
Just want to say you are my favourite reaction channel on TH-cam. I learn so much from each one, and I find you a very balanced source for history. Thanks for all your work.
People often like to downplay recation videos and their value. Your channel and work, I think, are a shining example of how useful context and informed opinion can be to enhanceing an original work.
Honestly, Chris, I agree with you on the winner here. My reasons are as follows: While Ford rightly accused Marx of inspiring future dictators... that's really not something that Marx himself could have controlled. That's tantamount to accusing someone of something terrible that their child did, even if the parent wasn't an abuser that either intentionally or unintentionally warped their child. Additionally, Ford's extra insults involving cologne and hygiene were just weak. Meanwhile, Marx attacked Ford for his treatment of workers, destruction of the American working class, collaboration with the Nazi Party, and alienation of his only son. All of that is powerful shit. Yeah, I'll give this one to Marx. Sure, I'm no fan of communism, but just as you said, what we understand communism to be in our modern day is pretty far from the idea that Marx originally had anyway. I don't feel bad or hypocritical for siding with him here.
Hes talking about the strike in 1932 where the workers marched to Dearborn for better wages and a combined force of Fords private security and police opened fire on them even though they had permission from the mayor of the city to march.
"Frankly Hank it's clear Auschwitz side you were on" is the best line in the song. "Frankly Hank" is a great pre-rhyme that almost makes you miss the "of which/Auschwitz" homophone, calling back to Ford's Fascist leanings. It's just a really well-constructed line.
@@ryko1478 one google seach would tell you "The naturalistic fallacy is the belief that something or someone's behavior should be accepted as natural because it occurs in the natural world or fits into what people perceive as normal for their society. This fallacy aims to prove that what is seen as natural is good and what is seen as unnatural is evil." you're on the internet, maybe use your brain for one second before placing the burden of proof onto others
@@messygrlWell, some parts of human nature are unremovable from us, at least with current state of technology (and I am not sure you would like to get total brain remodelling to stop caring about personal wealth). Marx’s theory simply didn’t work, not only not accounting for human nature, but even to basic economics, he literally ignored supply and demand as factors. Even when he was alive his works were widely criticised and years after he died his model was just shown to be unusable in post-industrial society. (Which wasn’t Marx’s fault he just couldn't predict, no-one could). As a result of this almost all his predictions failed, such as continuously worsening working conditions (no they got much better conditions since Marx's days), increased child labour - illegal, worldwide proletariat revolution (nope), communist revolution in country with the most proletariat - UK (nope, instead it happed in russian empire, where 99% were agricultural serfs). He has some good bits I learned through my philosophy degree (like alienation of workers from the products they produce - this is real problem), but he was largely worng. The problem is there are still millions of emotion-driven individuals following him out of jealousy and anger at those who have it better than them.
Chris, Extra History did a terrific series on Henry Ford. I would love to see you do a reaction to that series. I would highly recommend everyone go watch it.
My personal favorite line might have to be “I can’t take shit from you according to ability.” It manages to tie in rap lingo with the paraphrase of the historical figure’s belief, and tailor it to how the speaker would think about the target, while also refuting what the target said. Marx believes in the labor theory of value, he also believes that those who merely own private property and do not contribute to production do not produce value.
You could certainly interpret it that way but it's more directly a reference to the phrases "seize the means of production," and "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." He's saying that Ford produces crappy cars so even if the communists did seize the means of production, there would be nothing Ford creates that's worth taking
The only thing I want US learners to know about Marx is that he viewed capitalism as a necessary step towards socialism/communism. They associate him with Lenin and Stalin but they rushed forward too quickly whereas I think Marx understands that it would take a long time to transition. After all, we had feudalism for about a millennium, so obviously the capitalist era would take at least a couple centuries. The US is approaching the point where we would be able to achieve that, because the US has developed so much capital and are close to automating tons of base labor. We will transition in the coming decades - whether violently or not.
Ironic how later the industrial (I guess captains?) of the Soviet Union especially the Head of the Scientific Managment of Labor, Alexsei Gastev, was absolutely head over heels about Ford’s methods and Gastev especially taking it to an extreme.
For those that did not get the Ford's City in Brazil: Ford tried to create his own industrial city with the agreement of Brazillian Gov that was know as Fordlândia (Fordland in english). near a forest of "seringueira trees" that was the only way to produce Latex at the time at least until some british mofo illegally stole almost a ton of seeds to cultivae it on india ( it exists on all of south america but only Brazil had almost an entire forest of it), it's relevant because because Ford wanted to mass produce tires and that would have worked if he did not make the mistake of not adapting some of his working process to Brazillian culture that made the workers unhappy like: 1) They only gave hamburgers as a meal, when we mainly eats rice with beans with something of your choice, mostly beef or a fried egg with fries and a salad as an everyday meal. 2) They did not get to go back home, instead they had to sleep on Ford's dormitory near the factories, Brazillians are very family oriented people much like latinos. 3) "Harsh working discipline", Brazillians are hard working people like anyone else but the problem here is that we are very "warm people" to each other and even outsiders (gringos) but they tried to make the working place "colder" and anyone that did not, was heavily scolded. All of this ended up breaking in a full on revolt where the gov had to step in, but the "final nail in the coffin" in the project was the discovery of a way to produce tires from petroleum a few years later, making the latex based tires obsolete and the whole city pointless.
I honestly wish that you would explore the different definitions of socialism because many people today want a form of socialism that is both democratic and guarantees extremely strong human rights, with very little in common with the states that have called themselves communist.
It really is frustrating because Marx didn't necessarily mean Soviet style state ownership at all. It could be owned and operated by the workers. I'm not saying everyone would love Marx if they actually learned about his work, but I think many people would be surprised at how many of his ideas they'd agree with. I wonder if VTH knows about how big of an impact Marx has had on historiography and how "A People's History of the United States" is heavily influenced by Marx. Honestly, Marxism should first be seen as a lens through history should be viewed. In fact, I wish he'd do more videos about historiography in general. Learning about facts is nice and all, but learning how history is actually studied is far more interesting.
Meh..as economic student, the way the "communist country" used economic method as political statement just as way to gain masses support. Yuck. Those country are dictatorship
Marxist principles are the foundations of anarchist thought, too, especially anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-communism. You don't need nation states to have Marxist ideology.
@@DoggyHateFire I'm a historian, and Marx is still very influential in Historical circles in the United States. A people's history is more of a pop fiction book than an actual academic work, I would recommend The making of the English working class by EP Thompson who is a Marxian historian. But I would also like to say that as a tool of history, historical materialism is extremely dogmatic and as innefective as Whig History used to be.
@@defeatstatistics7413...The state is part of the public sector, socialism is where workers and the public own the means of production, hence it naturally falls that in socialism, the state takes the role. Even if the state is in the form of trade unions, it is still a state.
At around 8:56 when he’s talking about Henry spouting on his workers. You didn’t mention this but he did very well do this mainly to prevent any talk of unions happening and if you said something that would offend this then Henry’s head of security Harry Bennet and his boys would come over and give you a beatdown
When I was in high school, I found a book that Henry Ford wrote called “The International Jew,” THINKING THAT IT WOULD BE A SPY NOVEL ABOUT A MOSSAD AGENT. It wasn’t. I didn’t realize anyone could be that spiteful. I burned that book.
Always find discussions about the history (and current) of economics and ideologies fascinating. We all sit on slightly different places on a massive spectrum with no single correct answer.
I may be reading too far into it, but the line about the Model T having no "style" may be a reference to Marx's feeling that modern work under capitalism robbed the worker of creativity. Marx firmly believed that work should be an extension of one's interests. Essentially that by producing something, you are externalizing the best parts of you. Under Ford's system, the workers were forced to create something with no "soul," that the production line killed the creative aspect of production.
The history behind Marx’s bar, “Beating me is like your city in Brazil: NUTS” is fucking bonkers. Ford had the town (now known as Fordlandia) built in 1928 as a prefabricated industrial town where native Brazilians were made to cultivate rubber for his Model T’s. Much like his factories in America, Ford and his paid cronies policed the town like a totalitarian state. Native Brazilians were given a strict diet from which they could not deviate; no women, tobacco, or alcohol were allowed in the town; the “residents” (more like wage slaves) weren’t even allowed to play football. Needless to say, the Brazilians did not take too kindly to these ridiculous rules. In 1930-only two years after the town’s establishment-the residents rebelled in the cafeteria. This became known as the “Breaking Pans” because the workers hated Ford’s diet so fucking much. They chased the manager and the cook into the jungle until the Brazilian army finally had to step in and violently end the revolt. The town was pretty much abandoned after that. In the two years of its operations, the town and the workers never produced one ounce of useable rubber. Ford was fucking nuts.
Ford did try to control what his workers ate, drank (no alcohol at a time when most man drank a lot) and thought by having spies search their rooms. Also the city in Brazil thing was Fordlandia a rubber plantation that failed utterly because not only did Ford or his people have an area where all the tress were rubber trees and they were planted close together (meaning disease and parasites easily spread to ravage them) but he insisted the Brazilian workers live like people did in the USA or Western Europe instead of how they were used to living.
You should check out Extra History's series on Henry Ford. It goes into a lot of detail on the man, and just how badly he treated everyone, from Edsel to his workers.
Great Reaction! A Quick recommendation...i would Analyse their verses after each rap Part, it just flows better if you Pause each time one opponent has Finished their part + we still get to enjoy your history lessons :)
While I may not wholeheartedly agree with Marx's prescription, I respect the fact that he did more than just diagnose the diseases of the body politic. Too often, sociologists will present copious, well researched evidence, but back away from writing the 'patient' a prescription. Right or wrong, Marx did. Of course, there are too many people don't understand that there are a wide variety of different political perspectives within socialism. Personally, I believe that in circumstances where socialist ideas are not only workable, but provide the best outcomes, then those ideas should be applied. The same goes for liberal ideas, or conservative ones. In the circumstances where they produce the best outcomes they should be applied. If they cease to do so, then they are either updated or replaced with policies that are better. Seems better than lurching wildly from side to side, applying incompatible solutions to problems merely because they're the ones favoured by a bunch of ideologically committed amateurs. I live for the day that politics is treated more like it is plumbing than as if it's the Superbowl.
"sociologists will present copious, well researched evidence, but back away from writing the 'patient' a prescription." - What sociologists are you reading that don't recommend some kind of prescriptive treatment or policy suggestions?
I live to see the day when you can get people to agree on a common definition of "best outcome". That's where the whole idea falls apart. It's also where ideals of socialism grate against intrinsic individualism: how much of yourself do you want to give up for someone else's best outcome?
@@sike2399..We are also greedy by nature too. Because different people have different views on what exactly their "fair share" is. And we always want more, and more, and more.
It might just be me, but it seems like Ford is resorting to a lot of ad hominems compared to Marx, which is not something you need to do when you're in the right.
They were pretty soft on / ignorant about Marx to be honest, including putting him against Henry Ford in the first place. Engels wasn't the only guy he took money from (and Engels complained about it at times); he was borrowing money from everyone and it was a lifelong habit, and owed more to his spendthrift nature than anything else. He and his wife were constantly broke because they lived an expensive lifestyle, and they wrote about hoping for elderly relatives to die in the hope of inheriting something. They would buy clothes they couldn't afford to keep up appearances and he once went on a racist rant against someone who refused to lend him money. He was also fond of calling people or ideas he disagreed with moronic, idiotic, stupid etc, including those from almost any other Leftist; he advocated revolutionary violence and terror and he had to deny authoritarian-statist potential in his ideas because even in his lifetime people could see it (I don't think the idea that his ideas could even be corrupted by "human greed" jives with his beliefs about how humans and societies actually work either). They presented a superficial version of Marx. He was a genuinely brilliant genius in many fields and he had a very complex philosophical system they didn't really touch on, but he could also be very arrogant and callous and some of the totalitarian excesses of the Bolsheviks flow directly from his theories. As for Lincoln, he wrote to him twice and Lincoln's secretary said thank you; Marx celebrated when Lincoln died as well.
@@walterreeves3679 He wrote a letter to Engels after the assassination. They were happy about it as they believed that Lincoln had been too soft and they hoped (vainly, as it turned out) that Andrew Johnson would be harsher on the South. In line with their accelerationist beliefs, this was less about wanting to see the South punished for being pro-slavery, and more about aggravating the South and accelerating (and thus eventually destabilising) the spread of capitalism and / or provoking a Socialist revolution in the South.
Personally I always thought Marx vs Martin Luther would be a much more suitable battle because of how different and similar they both were, especially in regards to what they stood for as figures
@@HoV326 I think he should have battled either a pro-capitalist philosopher (like Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman) or an Anarchist one (like Mikhail Bakunin, his old enemy).
One of the things that comes to mind for me is that with how early capitalists treated workers vs how early socialists treated people there doesn’t appear to be a big difference other than whether it’s the government or businesses doing it. You make a great point that greed is the key, and that is precisely why we have laws in place to balance the power of the business owners with the well-being/needs of workers. The balance isn’t always equal and isn’t always good, but it’s important to ensure no system becomes corrupted to the point of endangering the public. And given our modern sense of social norms we don’t realize how precarious every system was in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Very fun way to get people to think about these things.
True that. Pretty much all the cases of mass starvation under communist regimes are for countries that were largely pre-industrial before the revolution, and where famines were a regular occurrence. Stalin and Mao had their share of famines, but still saw a gradual increase in life expectancy over their reigns, with famine all but becoming history after they left office and more moderate leaders took charge.
The Model T was introduced in 1908 and the design has not changed much until in 1927, when up to 15 million Model Ts were produced and Ford released the new Model A.
Do a video on fords failed city of fordlandia in Brazil. He tried to create a City near rubber so he could control the rubber trade. Very interesting topic
I agree with the comment on hypocrisy for those who advocate against something to be part of it. Im good with jokes about it, but in a serious conversation its basically a bad faith argument.
Indeed. The people who use that dig against socialists who are rich or otherwise beneficiaries of capitalism don't ever seem to think that, for example, anticommunist dissidents are hypocrites for participating in and being fed by the communist economy they live in. Or that Adam Smith was a hypocrite for agitating against mercantilism despite mercantilism having produced the prosperity enabling him to do so in the first place.
Um, like the "On paper" criticism isn`t the win capitalists think it is because you could say the same thing for full-on laissez-faire capitalism where selfishness and greed unchecked is supposed to lead to utopia "as if by an invisible hand" , an idea even Adam Smith mocked, also he plagiarized Ib`n al Khal`dun!
Indeed, one could say the same about "great idea in theory, impossible in practice" about a free market that the government doesn't intervene in or favour or disfavour anyone. Because inevitably those who manage to get rich will get disproportionate political influence and can use it to subvert the government to favour their interests. Adam Smith indeed wrote extensively about how the ideal free market that his economic theory is based on is compromised if businessmen either manage to subvert the government to serve their interests, or simply band together to fleece the public rather than compete against each other.
Extra History recently finished a series on Henry Ford that touches on alot of the points mentioned in the battle. If you're looking for a follow up series, not a bad place to start.
7:23 Thats's just wrong. As a german I like to make clear: Altough you can argue that the NSDAP was right wing (althuogh I think personally thats not true because the NSDAP just did take everything from the Zeitgeist except the racism which was a common thing throughout any political view.), they did not "leave communism" after Hitler came to power. The primary concern for Marx was *not* to seize the means of production, it was rather to have a socriety without classes. He just saw seizing as the best way to the finish line. The Nazis just incorperated a little bit of communism in their ideology and this was stable. In their "Völkerbund" they thought that no other classes and differences should seperate the "true german" people. So the statement that they had left communism somehow is wrong.
I appreciate your nuanced take on the merits of socialism vs capitalism. I think you hit the nail on the head that as long as the person in charge is selfish and greedy socialism can never work. Sadly, the selfless people who *might* be able to make it work are not typically the type of people who seek positions of leadership and power. I also think it's interesting that both people basically promoted vastly different systems of efficiency.
Socialism could work depending on how its implemented such as with checks and balances and if it is implemented with democracy the people could hold the people in power accountable.
@@michaelwright8896 I have my doubts that democracy would be effective in the long run. The popular choices are seldom healthy sensible choices. And people are swayed too easily into false narratives. You would need an almost Jesus-like figure running the show. Someone uncorruptible by power who genuinely wants the best for everyone. I don't believe such people exist.
Edsel did a fine job running the company as best he could.He just didn't get much freedom to run it because Henry was puppeteering him and making the real descisions, usually to spite Edsel.
I'd say Marx won it. Henry had some fine points earlier on, but by the fourth body odor joke, he gets very stale. I also don't consider it fair game for him to go after infant mortality. And while Marx's early lines were more on the defense, his final one really blew it out of the water. Mentioning what an awful parent Ford was, his company ties to the nazi war effort and slave labour, to just the common joke acronym of the car.
love your videos! I would to see your take on the Historia Civilis video about work throughout human history, I think you would find his argument compelling, however idk if you would completely agree.
Epic History just recently did Henry Ford as well so that may be a good follow up series to this as well. And as for another thing you mentioned too about working within the system to advance your own system, that is exactly what the Nazi party did too in Germany as well. They went from an organization that tried to overthrow the government in a coup to becoming a political party and gaining power that way instead.
Regarding one of Marx's early lines ("You'd get that from books, but you didn't read shit"), it's probably a reference to a libel lawsuit that Ford filed against the Chicago Tribune in 1919. In response to Ford's opposition to US's military expeditions against Pancho Villa in Mexico, the Chicago Tribune published a piece calling Ford an ignorant idealist and an anarchist. Ford filed suit against the Tribune, asking for $1 million in damages. Ford's testimony during the trial was widely ridiculed for being inarticulate and incredibly ignorant about American history. Among the highlights of his beliefs were apparently things like believing the American Revolution was fought in 1812 and that Benedict Arnold was a famous author. There was also a quote he gave in an interview with the Chicago Tribune in 1916 that was used against him: "Say, what do I care about Napoleon? What do we care about what they did 500 or 1,000 years ago? I don't know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across and I don't care. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we make today." Ultimately, Ford did win the libel case, because he was demonstrably not an anarchist, but instead of the $1 million he asked for, the Jury awarded Ford 6 cents in damages.
I mean to say this respectfully, but the idea that, "every ideology is great on paper until people get involved," is often used as an excuse to avoid actually understanding the content and effectiveness of the thought systems in question. It's a retreat into cynicism that assumes that it's best to believe in nothing too strongly to save oneself from mistakes rather than an attempt to use critical thinking to form a firm understanding of the world that calls for action, and that mindset can only be assumed by those who're already favored by the status quo. It's not that the human animal is naturally prone to corruption. It's that various people in history chose to forge their beliefs into weapons in order to abuse others for selfish reasons, and if you actually pay attention to the history of philosophy, you'll find that some beliefs make better weapons than others.
For those interested, Knox Hill did a very thorough breakdown of this battle that goes pretty deep into all the lines. Recommend it for those who find these breakdowns interesting.
I don't mind his videos but he's one of the only people that reacts to these that I'm convinced watches and researches them before his reaction. There's just no way somebody never misses a single bar
i don't think he watches them, but he does read the lyrics before hand and read wikipedia about the characters involved in the battle. He said it a couple of time, and i know that he also is a very knowledgeable person normaly. He's a bit of a nerd and never tried to hide it as well. So yeah, i don't think he watches them, but he does research and read the lyrics before hand, 100%.@@hawkman8706
Ye he does a lot of research prior to the videos but he's decently well backgrounded in music and politics according to himself. Still, he's very thorough and I would recommend giving them a watch especially if you're looking for context on the lesser known lines. And why sleight the guy for putting in work to react to something?
@@bobbuilder6761 if he wants to call it a breakdown then call it that. But he calls it a reaction and pretends like it's his first time seeing it, when clearly it's not. That's my issue with it.
Edsel took over the company but Henry bought over 50% of the stocks meaning he was still in charge. It's widely believed that Edsel's stomach cancer was a result of the ulcers caused by the stress of just having Henry Ford as a dad.
To be fair toward both of them: Henry Ford was the man who not only give us 8/40 hour work time, production line and affordable car was still a strict capitalist who abused his workers to some degree was not upstanding human being and had some racist stands. Karl Marx was a men who was ahead of his time with his ideas and it shows giving how even today people are very critical of him. But to his credit, his ideas were born only becasue owners of factories and markets of those days were treating their workers no better than slaves with 12-16 hours work time + weekends as well. Most of the things we have today which are considered social programs (pension, medical care, some medicine) are direct results of his ideas + workers own initiative. I do agree that his ideas were twisted to serve the greed of others (Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot and Kim Jong Il) are good examples) but then again capitalism, religion and science did not fare any better as well (workers were treated like slaves and wars started for capitalistic greed, religion was used as excuse to start wars and exterminate entire groups of people and science is known for having most of it's ideas and inventions being used to either hold others into submission or kill them). So overall, I think Marx was better in this rap battle and in person was better men seeing how his children ended up rich after his passing while Ford's legacy died with him.
It's worth mentioning that several American car companies (notably Ford and GM) had extensive manufacturing plants in Germany. These were retooled to produce vehicles for the German military with the knowledge and permission of the respective head offices at a time when they were actively lobbying to keep America out of the war. It was a sound business decision from their point of view but still massively aided the Nazi war efforts.
There was a Ford factory in the Soviet Union too, using Americans who were gullible enough to have fallen for the siren song of Communism. After Sept. 1, 1939 Hitler simply took control of both Ford and GM manufacturing plants. The Americans had nothing to say about how they were used.
Edsel died long before the Edsel car. He did come up with the Model A successor to the Model T that Henry hated. But Edsel was right, Ford needed to update its cars by the late 20s.
Whether National Socialism counts as a "Socialism" or not comes down to: 1) Which definition of Socialism you are using (there are MANY) 2) Whether or not you accept that there are multiple types of Socialism (Marxists insist that their Socialism is "Scientific" and the only really valid one) 3) Whether you think rampant corruption and fraud in the Nazi regime undermines any claims to "socialism" that they might otherwise have had 5) How much you understand about Socialism and Nazism in the first place 6) How far you distinguish between "National Socialism" and "Hitlerism" (and also, German National Socialism vs the other ones that had different policies and ideologies). Also keep in mind this argument tends to be deeply ideological in nature, and different camps come down to people not wanting to be associated with Nazism but also wanting it to be associated with their enemies, as well as factoring in things like Soviet propaganda and political differences in the USA vs elsewhere. It's really a meaningless argument since genocidal anti-Semitism, warmongering and dictatorship are all things that show up in many different ideologies across whatever spectrum you are using, but people like using Nazi as an insult.
Arguably it was a kind of unorthodox Socialism originally. The idea being that it's, well, national. Socialism for the racially pure national in-group, supremacist subjugation for everyone else. Which is what set it apart from the Socialist mainstream and caused it to never be accepted as part of it, as the Socialist mainstream adhered to the idea of international working-class solidarity. Originally, that is. The Socialist elements of Nazi ideology were largely purged during the Night of the Long Knives 1934. After that, Nazism became pretty much whatever Hitler says it is.
8:25 as a self proclaimed historian how can you gloss over the fact that all socialist projects especially the USSR were never allowed to practice true socialism because of other countries Invading and putting sanctions on them so if it doesn’t work it practice why wasn’t it allowed to fail on its own
Regarding the "Chronic d1ck boils" line, Marx was known to have had several lengthy liaisons with former prostitutes, and it's not hard to get from there to rumors of some STD or another (and given the hygiene of the time it's a pretty safe bet one or the other of them was true). Between that and his skin condition which caused boils, that's where they're going with this line. As for who won, Ford's performance in this battle is a fine example of why you should never use your best lines first. He started off nailing Marx to the wall and then had nothing to follow it up with.
I think you should try letting each person's verse play through once and then going back and breaking down each line. I think it would flow a lot better
Marx was actually much more progressive than people of his time on jewish rights. Then the liberals were content to simply push for religious toleration while he advocated for equal rights.
@@TJ-lh7xg True, but he made anti-Jewish comments in it regardless, and he made anti-Jewish and racist comments in other places as well (yes, despite being Jewish himself).
I don't believe you have, but if you haven't, you should check out Extra History's videos about Henry Ford. That could help more easily contextualize some of Marx's digs in this ERB
I'll have to respectfully disagree with you on the Nazis being right-wing. They were not Socialists in the traditional sense by they had State control of many aspects of life, including large portions of the economy. Hitler was influenced most by Mussolini, who was himself a Socialist for mist of his life, but broke with it over WWI philosophies. At this point, he created Facism which is essentially Socialism light.
@@VloggingThroughHistory You are absolutely correct: State control of certain industries is not necessarily indicative of socialism/left-wing ideology. However, it was the extent to which the Nazis did this that made them the very embodiment of socialism. The Nazi socialist agenda (Gleichschaltung) merged the economy, and nearly every facet of society into the State. This included business and professional associations, even sport and social clubs were taken over, or placed under the control of, the Third Reich. They even abolished private property. Specifically, the Nazis viewed private property as conditional upon its use (to the State) and not as a fundamental right. If the property was not being used to further the Nazi’s goals, it would be nationalized. They also implemented oppressive taxes on the wealthy and foreigners, which subsidized the poor and working classes. Additionally, heavy social and operational regulations were imposed on businesses in every industry - regulations on the hiring and firing of workers, working hours, vacation time. If the leaders refused to cooperate, the government would expropriate the business, remove the owners. Hugo Younker, of the Younkers Airplane factory, is a notable example that comes to mind.
A comparison that would make sense would be Karl Marx v. Adam Smith. Both economists recognized that human beings are self-interested (i.e., 'greedy') but they took away from that different conclusions. Marx thought that would eventually be resolved by power overcoming self-interest (the dictatorship of the proletariat). Smith recognized that self-interest can be channeled through an 'invisible hand' into a force that would promote the general well-being of a society. Smith saw that if people had to trade with one another, rather than impose by force their desires upon each other, all would prosper. The key to 'capitalism' is voluntary exchange, not force. Unfortunately, the term 'capitalism' suggests the key is financial capital, which can be captured and used as a weapon. That's just poorly defined terminology. BTW, Henry Ford was a failed businessman at first. He ran his first endeavor into the ground, and was headed for the same with his second until the investors took it away from him and made it into the Cadillac Motor Co. It was only when Ford showed the Dodge brothers his more powerful engine than the one Ransome Olds was using, that they--well aware of Ford's flakiness--imposed economic discipline on him (and it was a near thing that Ford produced an economically viable auto, rather than another race car) that the Ford Motor Co. survived.
I love bringing up how TIME magazine made Adolf Hitler their man of the year. In 1938. They followed up that blunder with Stalin taking the title in 1939.
I would say that absolute socialism, which, in modern terms, would be a combination of egalitarian monetary guarantees and forced investment into capital, whether through the state or market parties, simply won't happen as long as greed exists to make people want more than other people, and power exists in some so as to realize that goal at the expense of others. It isn't that such absolute socialism would cure greed: it's that it's true implementation presupposes that greed has already been cured enough that the power brokers in that society are WILLING to implement it. But I will say that there is still a sliding scale defined by the percentage of the economy generated through social guarantees. If one society spends 10% of its GDP on social guarantees and another spends 20%: the 20% one is, at least as expressed through policy: half as greedy as the one that spent 10%. Obviously: both are far and away from spending all 100% on a socially guaranteed mean per capita output, but one is still obviously more generous.
I love how Henry Ford says its bad for a leader to like Karl Marx, only for Marx to be like "My Brother in Christ, Hitler praised you in his book"
Well i don't see why Marx would have an issue with that he was big jew hater himself despite being jewish
I didn’t know this until I saw the battle, but where Marx calls himself a “Lincoln Letter Inking Proletarian” that’s a reference to the fact that after the election of 1864, Marx wrote Lincoln congratulating him on his victory.
It’s weird to think that not only were they alive at the same time, but they wrote each other.
They didn't write "to each other"- Marx wrote a letter to Lincoln on behalf of the International Workingman's Association, and Lincoln's representative (Charles Francis Adams- grandson of John Adams and son of John Quincy) wrote a thank you reply.
That's really it, but some people tried to make a big deal out of it for either ideological or monetary gain.
On a personal level, Marx thought Lincoln was too soft and bourgeois, and hoped that his assassination would lead a vengeful Andrew Johnson to start a revolutionary war against the South (he was obviously disappointed).
@@jonathancampbell5231 him and me both tbh, that would be bloody as hell and horrible BUT a lot of our modern political issues stem directly from the softness of reconstruction and the failure of republicans of the era to properly root out the systemic blight of racism. if more of the south had had reconstructions as radical as key west, for instance, the south would be a FAR different place, and the US government would probably be better. That said, I think it's a dumb gamble and I think marxists are prone to making it too often, a la Zizek's hope in a resurgent left after trump. He was right, it turns out, but that doesn't change that it was a crazy accelerationist ploy.
@@candyh4284racism doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s probably because I’m not an Evolutionist.
In evolution it makes sense: you come from nothing; you fight to get what you want; everything and everyone is trying to kill you or outdo you; you need to fight or scare off competitors who want to impregnate your women; anything different is seen as a threat; etc.
Meanwhile, I just believe “God said He made every human being Himself; He made them with purpose & intention; He made them to be made in His image; God set forth very clear ways on how to handle certain issues, the color of the skin of person (outside of sicknesses) was not one of them. Therefore, if the way you look was not only not a problem to God, but also made intentionally by God in His own image, it makes no logical sense to cause harm to another based on these traits alone.
Rather it makes greater sense with this basis of religious understanding, that there should be unity among the different looking individuals while greater judgment is placed on the actions and intentions of the individuals.
For when you come from nothing, you have nothing to lose.
When you come from God, you have reason for compassion.
@@stevelucky7579 Man is no more inherently combative and competitive than chimp is inherently Catholic. It's something you *become* after interacting with your environment. Man is naturally three things: rational, emotional, and malleable. That's it. Everything else is environment. We are sold ideologies that tell us, incorrectly, that we're inherently the people we are. There is a certain essence of "us" that's undying, but that's just not true. We are dust, but that doesn't mean we have to be unholy. That doesn't mean God didn't make us. If we are dust, I'll ask you, what are the plants? Dust as well, certainly? What about when we eat them? Well, they're not dust within our stomachs, but then they become "us"-dust. So we're a collection of things we've eaten, places we've been, and people we've loved. Is that not divine? And then when we die, and our souls go where they may, our bodies stay here, and become dust again, for someone else to use. Why can't that also be holy? Why can't God be in evolution? All evolution is the statement that "All beings are a little bit different, and overtime those differences come to make new types of beings because of their environments and the specific challenges they face." Why can't God be selective pressures? Population bottlenecks? K curves and J curves? Is life any less valuable because He designed it smaller than us, slimmer than us, thicker than us, taller than us? Surely He didn't design me exactly like Him, because if He designed all of us exactly like Him, we'd all look the same. In which case, why does it matter if He's actually a giraffe, or a watermelon with psychic powers, or a prokaryote? Doesn't it strike you as arrogant to presume the book (written and assembled by MEN) that proclaims you specifically the product of infinity is literal, rather than aphorism? God is everything, everywhere, all the time, forever, all. The Absolute. And you'd really presume to see your own face in the clouds?
Evolution, this infinite cycle of dust becoming oceans of things, all unique in character, all different, and all beautiful in whatever way they will be said to be. Is that not the most compelling evidence of something divine? Something beyond us, beyond anything, beyond EVERYthing? This is infinitely more miraculous than some large man-shaped thing "letting there be light." This is a piece of beauty that is unsurpassable, unknowable to mortals. We just get to be a part of it, to partake in our dust, leave, and go elsewhere. If you cannot find God in what you immediately find around you, you are not seeing God everywhere, where He most certainly is. And if we are made in the image of God, and we are to one day become maggots, then we are tasked with seeing ourselves in the faces of all creatures, from the smallest microbe to the largest blue whale (they're the largest creatures we have any record of ever existing, it's pretty miraculous that we exist in the same time as them, you should read up on them).
@@stevelucky7579As someone who believes on evolution racism still doesn't make any sense, since race is a social construct and doesn't actually affect anyone's physical or non physical attributes. Evolutionary theory doesn't really give any valid reason for racism to exist, since racism is inherently illogical.
9:47 Karl's line of "Beating me is like your city in Brazil, nuts!" is referring to Fordlândia. Henry Ford made a prefabricated town in Northern Brazil to control the rubber production in the area. However, due to lack of infrastructure and knowledge of tropical agriculture, the town was abandoned by 1934, marking ot a disastrous project.
wasn't there also a huge revolt to ford take over and abuse of the workers there?
and also a word play cause there are nuts called Brazilian nuts
A typical capitalist moment.
That was also where he tried to control what workers could think, drink, and eat. He tried to make all his workers celibate, sober vegetarians. Dude even tried to ban soccer. In Brazil.
One of the reasons it collapsed is because people found out about it and literally showed up with riverboats full of booze and hookers.
@@nikolasavic1525 Wouldn't that make it a triple strike?
The reference to the town, to the brazil nuts, and saying what he did was nuts. XD
Henry openly mocked and sabotaged Edsel to his staff and reporters even going to the point of opening a competing company. I think the stress and a bunch of other lifestyle factors led to Edsel's stomach cancer.
irritation such as ulceration is known to increase cancer risk iirc, I don't know how much of it was purely "Dad-based stress" or what, but my guess is a lot of it was environmental. That said, there's something to be said about how his dad manufactured that very environment where the combined stresses of industrialization and paternal abuse/ridicule are forced on this dude.
I love how Marx called Ford a fascist and he was like "Yeah. So about this communism thing...". Even if you don't think Ford was a fascist, straight up ignoring criticism gotta be the most Ford thing he could do lol
Fascists blaming communism for their mistakes is entirely on point for fascists lmao
He most definitely wasn’t a fascist 😂
@@TheRealForgetfulElephant he supported the Nazis. Idk how much more you need to label someone a fascist
He was definitely fascist and antisemitic. You should read the literature he handed out to his workers. Big yikes!!
@@Last555555555 War is very profitable. Especially when you're building an invasion force big enough to conquer Europe. Just because he made some money off them doesn't mean he supports their politics.
I think in this battle Marx definitely won. Ford just roasted Marx for having bad people look up to him, whereas Marx roasted Ford for BEING a bad person.
I think that's the best way I've seen it put so far. That and the fact that Ford mostly made comments about him being smelly and poor. Very on brand for him.
Tbf, Marx wasn’t really a good person himself.
@@TranJack123he didnt support the nazis and murder his workers like ford did.
@@TranJack123both are not relatively not good people
but Marx did make sure to dig Ford's shit with his dirty hands, making Ford seem worse
@@TranJack123You're right. In his personal life, he certainly was no upstanding citizen. But he was nowhere near as terrible as the people who took his basic ideals and perverted them into violent dictatorships.
So yeah, Ford's employees did get shot up in what is known today as the "Ford Massacre" (or Ford Hunger March), where basically Henry ordered his security forces and the local PD to attack the employees on strike. I think some 5 of the protestors died, and 22-25 more were severely injured. It was an absolute tragedy, especially considering it was covered by the right to peaceful assembly. It was a huge problem and started to wake America up to the idea of what corporate money could do to this country, in fact it was one of the events that resulted in the NLRA of 1935 to be made into law.
Typical capitalism exploiting the working class.
Two different battle strategies here:
Ford went for Marx's life's work.
Marx went for Ford's life.
Ford went more for Marx's hygiene than anything else.
@@DominionSorcererTrue and that is often a weak approach as it was here
@@DominionSorcerer That was like one third or two fifths of it, the rest was attacking socialism and communism
I feel like it was the opposite. Ford just called him stinky and made personal insults while marx attacked him for being a fascist and super capitalist lol
@@manatortv That was for a lot of the 2nd verse and the end of the 3rd verse, the rest was valid imo
3:40 Henry Ford as a young child liked to take apart watches and rebuild them, so I think that's what they refer to. Maybe Im wrong. In any case, great reaction! We need more ERB reactions!
P.S when reacting to erb, each time you pause it might be better to rewind a couple of seconds before you unpause, that way you don't miss anything important.
Knox Hill, starting with his review of FOrd VS Marx, decided to watch each part first and then look at it in detail. Which, imho, is a good middle ground between "Watchit all and talka about it afterwarrds" and "Pause every line"
@@undertakernumberone1 I know, I watched his reaction as soon as it came out
9:47 Ford did build a city in the rainforest so he could have his own supply of rubber, it was a complete disaster.
wasnt in the rainforst, northern of brazil isnt the Amazon rainforest, northern is most tropical and ''cerrado'' areas, its the north of my country and a very few parts of northest with the rainforest.
Fun fact: Edsel Ford had a son named William Clay Ford Sr. He married Martha Firestone, the granddaughter of Harvey Firestone, the founder of the Firestone Tire Company. William owned the NFL's Detroit Lions, and when he passed in 2014, Martha took over ownership of the Lions. Before the start of the 2020 season, Martha passed ownership of the Lions to her and William's daughter, Sheila Ford Hamp. Sheila's brother, William Jr. is the executive chairman of the Ford Motor Company.
And the Firestones are from my neck of the woods. Harvey was from Columbiana, which is about 15 minutes from me. I ran cross country in Firestone Park when we had meets against that school.
I love the double meaning on “when a leader likes you, that’s a red flag”. Meaning a bad sign and also the well known flag for communism being a red field with something on it (hammer and sickle normally). It makes me wonder if the term could come from McCarthyism and the red scare.
The phrase has its origin in the 18th century, so no, though it would be easy to use at that time LMAO
Vice versa. McCarthyism was called the "Red Scare" because it was fearmongering about the "reds," a pejorative for socialists due to their prior association with the color red. Socialists were (as far as I know, probably further still but I'm no historian) using the red flag (just a sheet dyed red, symbolic of the "blood of the people") in the Paris commune, commonly regarded as the first communist experiment. Roses, likewise, have long been a symbol of democratic socialism, being both red, beautiful, and delicate.
The modern term red flag as a metaphor does have roots in McCarthyism and the Cold War. There are earlier instances of literal red flags used for warning signs but they're not related to the modern term.
In March 7th, 1932 five unemployed auto workers were killed by police and Ford security guards in Dearborn, Michigan. In what became known as 'The Ford Hunger March' or 'The Ford Massacre'.
😊😊
Now Dearborn is a Moose limb dystopia..
Another reason socialism has its reputation is that it almost always arose in violent reorganizations (revolution, coupe, etc.) which also has a tendency to allow ambitious authoritarians to take power in the chaos. It’s important to note socialism doesn’t require centralization or command economics
In fact I would argue socialism in inherently decentralised since it’s based on the withers controlling the means of production
The states justified it by saying the government is workers but that’s obviously not the case that’s just authoritarianism
Modern communist theory (Marxism-Leninism or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism) posits that the only way a socialist government can be effectively put in place is through a revolution.
The ruling class of capitalism has the political system moulded to their will and they won't give up that control just because the people demand it. And, even when some sort of democratic transition into socialism is attempted, outside interference is quick to nip it in the bud.
The 1960's and 70's saw many left-wing governments elected in Latin America (only one of them was an outright socialist, Salvador Allende in Chile) and the United States immediately funded military coups to overthrow them, for fear of losing control of their "backyard".
Socialism could only win via violence, take Cuba for example, you think that slave owning goverment would allow socialists to take power democratically? Or what about China and the Soviet Union, the practicall feudal russian tsarist state wouldn't dare to let them take power.
@@jmurray1110The state is part of the public sector, socialism is where workers and the public own the means of production, hence it naturally falls that in socialism, the state takes the role. Even if the state is in the form of trade unions, it is still a state.
Read about salvador allende
I think it should be noted that the textile mills that Engels ran were his family’s and they really pushed him into working within the family business, which he would off and on resist. However, he also served the revolutionaries in 1848 working under future Union general August Willich
Also, his family didn't own the mills entirely, just a major ownership share of the company. A share that Engels eventually inherited, but under the terms of the will, he was unable to sell it or otherwise cash out of it, he pretty much just received dividends from it.
Edsel Ford didn't actually do a bad job as an exec. However, he had to contend with his father's constant interference. He was long dead before the Edsel Ford auto was designed. It was Henry Ford who came up with it as a tribute to his son's memory. Possibly born out of a sense of guilt for how he had treated him.
Both father and son were long dead by the time the Edsel came about. Edsel died in 1943, Henry in 1947. Edsel came out in the mid 50s. I looked it up after making the video.
@@VloggingThroughHistory So I got it half right, which means I got it wrong. My bad.
@@walterreeves3679 I think Henry Ford II was responsible for the Edsel.
Mr Terry did a great coverage of this as a history teacher, Scru Face Jean broke it down bar for bar as a battle rapper, and now you as a historian! This is great!
Yep. All three bring unique and awesome pieces to the table. ❤
Weirdly enough Knox Hill also broke it down into a lot more depth than I expected from him, really going into detail on the character of both Ford and Marx.
And Knox did both!
8:55 Idk how I haven't seen this mentioned in other comment sections before but the reference to "Big Brother" from 1984 is a nice dig against Ford who Marx exposed as being a fascist in the battle
I think that, and the subsequent Animal Farm reference, are probably showing how one ideology sees the other as Orwellian.
@@ninjawarrior8994Well Orwell was an anarchist socialist sympathizer who hated the Soviet Union.
Hi Chris, well a lot of Karl Marx's ideas were formulated here in Manchester, and it is here that he met Engels. They saw the poverty that mill owners put the working people through whilst raking in massive profits for themselves (as they saw it).
There was clamour for political reform, but the establishment (scareed of a French style revolution still fresh in memories) had brutally suppressed any form of protest for reform. In August 1819 an organised protests about the lack of representation in towns of the industrial North of England, when an "empty hill housing only of sheep in the South had 2 MPs! This had resulted in a massacre by the local yeomanry (there were at that time no police) of protestors in St Peters field which became know as Peterloo (in reference to the battle in 1815), where over 600 people were casualties including a boy under 2 (William Fides) who was knocked from his mother's arms. This eventually lead to the Reform Act of 1832 which got rid of the 'rotten boroughs ' as they were called. On a similar point is it any wonder that Sir Robert Peel (as the MP of the nearby town of Bury) created an organised the Metropolitan Police when he became prime minister to deal with public order in 1829.
Anyway back to Marx....Specifically Marx was looking at the poverty of the industrial cities and he met his fellow German, Engles who was examining production methodology for his family Textile business in Germany. They picked up on one specific location here in Manchester, charmingly named "Angel Meadow" had the worst recorded death rate in England for a many years, it was so bad that the local church yard of St Michael and all angels was closed on the direct orders of the Queen and paved over ..... To stop the soil being taken away for agricultural purposes (humans remains apparently make excellent fertiliser) and to reduce the spread of diseases like Cholea, Typhoid and Diphtheria that so many had died from.
As a result the Library of Cheathams School (which the world oldest public library) in Manchester is the location where they penned the Communist Manifesto, which so many pinned their colours to only to be disappointed in the way it was interpreted by fallable human beings.
I’m pretty sure that “city in Brazil” bit is about the Americanesque city in the middle of Amazon that Ford tried to build to have cheap rubber factories. It was even called “Fordlândia”
It was a pretty close battle.... right up till Marx's final section where he just annihilated Ford. The only thing that springs to mind not addressed was the Edsel bit and that yeah, Ford did sabotage his kids ability to run the company, officially stepping down but behind the scenes making clear he didn't like how his kid was running things and messing with his ability to actually be in charge. And just in general being a dick of a dad.
Close? Not really. Ford relied on ad hominem for most of it, his best attack was "hey look at who admires you" but coming from the guy admired by literally Adolph Hitler that point is lost...
But they missed that even in this, Marx was far worse.
He boned the maid, knocked her up, and refused to acknowledge his son or lift him from his life of poverty--even in his will.
Marx even wrote a letter of congratulation to Abrahm Lincoln on his 1864 re-election.
I definitely recommend watching the behind the scenes video. Both Nice Peter and Epic Lloyd go into details about some of the research they did on their characters and how and why they portrayed them like they did in the ERB.
10:54 On March 7, 1932, Dearborn police and Ford private security opened fire on a crowd of unemployed auto workers who were marching for better worker's rights. 4 were killed, more than 60 were injured, and a 5th would die later from his injuries.
"Everything is great on paper until humans get involved." My hs history teacher said the same thing. Another history teacher used to say that Marx was a great thinker, but did not account for human shortcomings.
It's not "not accounting" as much as theorizing human relations change to conform to the society they live in. If you are born and raised in a capitalist system, you're taught to think like a capitalist.
Such a stupid simplification
@@LucianCanad..The problem is, there hasn't been a true Communist society as the only ones that come close are hunter gatherer tribes.
As for Socialism, it seems there hasn't been a place where it has fully worked out successfully. It only resulted in more bodies, or getting couped cause of foreign intervention.
@@LucianCanad So what about those who were raised in the USSR or other Socialist systems?
@@chrissant6277 If you look up interviews with Russians who were alive back then, many describe the sense of community and hope for the future they felt. Before Boris Yeltsin's coup officially dissolved the USSR, a referendum conducted in most republics showed the population overwhelmingly supported maintaining the Union.
Most Cubans today still defend the revolution and its accomplishments, as demonstrated by a recent attempt at a color revolution that got outprotested by pro-socialism Cubans.
Despite how the western world depicts life in socialism, no country lasts long unless a sizeable amount of the population stands by its way of life (Althusser has some great work about Ideological State Apparatuses).
Don't get me wrong, running what's essentially a nation-sized counterculture movement is tricky business, and not everything done in the name of preserving a revolution was done correctly or cleanly. What Marxists strive for is to properly apply the Marxian method (dialectical and historical materialism) to everything that happened and create and improve ways to make those new social relations form as smoothly as possible.
But, crucially, those changes take time to develop, the same way people didn't go to sleep in feudalism and woke up in the Renaissance the very next day. People give us hell for saying "communism has never been implemented", but we say that because we believe a communist society will only fully develop once capitalism has faded into history. Until then, we lay the groundwork for that new society by progressively fixing capitalism's flaws, which can only happen after the class-conscious working class has taken state power.
Just want to say you are my favourite reaction channel on TH-cam. I learn so much from each one, and I find you a very balanced source for history. Thanks for all your work.
We need more ERB reactions! 🔥
I always rush to your channel a day or two after these historical battles come out. I love your reviews of them :)
People often like to downplay recation videos and their value. Your channel and work, I think, are a shining example of how useful context and informed opinion can be to enhanceing an original work.
Honestly, Chris, I agree with you on the winner here. My reasons are as follows:
While Ford rightly accused Marx of inspiring future dictators... that's really not something that Marx himself could have controlled. That's tantamount to accusing someone of something terrible that their child did, even if the parent wasn't an abuser that either intentionally or unintentionally warped their child. Additionally, Ford's extra insults involving cologne and hygiene were just weak.
Meanwhile, Marx attacked Ford for his treatment of workers, destruction of the American working class, collaboration with the Nazi Party, and alienation of his only son. All of that is powerful shit.
Yeah, I'll give this one to Marx. Sure, I'm no fan of communism, but just as you said, what we understand communism to be in our modern day is pretty far from the idea that Marx originally had anyway. I don't feel bad or hypocritical for siding with him here.
Was waiting for this
Hes talking about the strike in 1932 where the workers marched to Dearborn for better wages and a combined force of Fords private security and police opened fire on them even though they had permission from the mayor of the city to march.
"Frankly Hank it's clear Auschwitz side you were on" is the best line in the song. "Frankly Hank" is a great pre-rhyme that almost makes you miss the "of which/Auschwitz" homophone, calling back to Ford's Fascist leanings. It's just a really well-constructed line.
Hank is also diminutive of Henry
When a historian/teacher reacts to erb : 10-18 minutes
when a TH-camr/Rapper reacts to it : literally 1 hour
You should watch the Extra History episodes on Henry Ford, they were very good!
bro really pulled the "human nature" fallacy LMAOOOO
What
@@ryko1478 one google seach would tell you "The naturalistic fallacy is the belief that something or someone's behavior should be accepted as natural because it occurs in the natural world or fits into what people perceive as normal for their society. This fallacy aims to prove that what is seen as natural is good and what is seen as unnatural is evil."
you're on the internet, maybe use your brain for one second before placing the burden of proof onto others
@@messygrl they just said "what" calm down.
@@messygrlWell, some parts of human nature are unremovable from us, at least with current state of technology (and I am not sure you would like to get total brain remodelling to stop caring about personal wealth). Marx’s theory simply didn’t work, not only not accounting for human nature, but even to basic economics, he literally ignored supply and demand as factors. Even when he was alive his works were widely criticised and years after he died his model was just shown to be unusable in post-industrial society. (Which wasn’t Marx’s fault he just couldn't predict, no-one could). As a result of this almost all his predictions failed, such as continuously worsening working conditions (no they got much better conditions since Marx's days), increased child labour - illegal, worldwide proletariat revolution (nope), communist revolution in country with the most proletariat - UK (nope, instead it happed in russian empire, where 99% were agricultural serfs). He has some good bits I learned through my philosophy degree (like alienation of workers from the products they produce - this is real problem), but he was largely worng. The problem is there are still millions of emotion-driven individuals following him out of jealousy and anger at those who have it better than them.
@@asmodean7239 "he literally ignored supply and demand as factors" my guy I have the feeling that someone might have lied to you.
Chris, Extra History did a terrific series on Henry Ford. I would love to see you do a reaction to that series. I would highly recommend everyone go watch it.
Yes. It is an excellent in depth breakdown of his life and MANY of the references here are fully explained (not all though)
The Brazilian city is a reference to two cities that Henry Ford founded in the Amazon, the most famous of which is called Fordlandia
My personal favorite line might have to be
“I can’t take shit from you according to ability.”
It manages to tie in rap lingo with the paraphrase of the historical figure’s belief, and tailor it to how the speaker would think about the target, while also refuting what the target said. Marx believes in the labor theory of value, he also believes that those who merely own private property and do not contribute to production do not produce value.
You could certainly interpret it that way but it's more directly a reference to the phrases "seize the means of production," and "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." He's saying that Ford produces crappy cars so even if the communists did seize the means of production, there would be nothing Ford creates that's worth taking
@@egtge218
The Ford cars are the ends of production, not the means.
The only thing I want US learners to know about Marx is that he viewed capitalism as a necessary step towards socialism/communism. They associate him with Lenin and Stalin but they rushed forward too quickly whereas I think Marx understands that it would take a long time to transition. After all, we had feudalism for about a millennium, so obviously the capitalist era would take at least a couple centuries. The US is approaching the point where we would be able to achieve that, because the US has developed so much capital and are close to automating tons of base labor.
We will transition in the coming decades - whether violently or not.
Ironic how later the industrial (I guess captains?) of the Soviet Union especially the Head of the Scientific Managment of Labor, Alexsei Gastev, was absolutely head over heels about Ford’s methods and Gastev especially taking it to an extreme.
For those that did not get the Ford's City in Brazil:
Ford tried to create his own industrial city with the agreement of Brazillian Gov that was know as Fordlândia (Fordland in english). near a forest of "seringueira trees" that was the only way to produce Latex at the time at least until some british mofo illegally stole almost a ton of seeds to cultivae it on india ( it exists on all of south america but only Brazil had almost an entire forest of it), it's relevant because because Ford wanted to mass produce tires and that would have worked if he did not make the mistake of not adapting some of his working process to Brazillian culture that made the workers unhappy like:
1) They only gave hamburgers as a meal, when we mainly eats rice with beans with something of your choice, mostly beef or a fried egg with fries and a salad as an everyday meal.
2) They did not get to go back home, instead they had to sleep on Ford's dormitory near the factories, Brazillians are very family oriented people much like latinos.
3) "Harsh working discipline", Brazillians are hard working people like anyone else but the problem here is that we are very "warm people" to each other and even outsiders (gringos) but they tried to make the working place "colder" and anyone that did not, was heavily scolded.
All of this ended up breaking in a full on revolt where the gov had to step in, but the "final nail in the coffin" in the project was the discovery of a way to produce tires from petroleum a few years later, making the latex based tires obsolete and the whole city pointless.
I honestly wish that you would explore the different definitions of socialism because many people today want a form of socialism that is both democratic and guarantees extremely strong human rights, with very little in common with the states that have called themselves communist.
It really is frustrating because Marx didn't necessarily mean Soviet style state ownership at all. It could be owned and operated by the workers. I'm not saying everyone would love Marx if they actually learned about his work, but I think many people would be surprised at how many of his ideas they'd agree with. I wonder if VTH knows about how big of an impact Marx has had on historiography and how "A People's History of the United States" is heavily influenced by Marx. Honestly, Marxism should first be seen as a lens through history should be viewed.
In fact, I wish he'd do more videos about historiography in general. Learning about facts is nice and all, but learning how history is actually studied is far more interesting.
Meh..as economic student, the way the "communist country" used economic method as political statement just as way to gain masses support. Yuck. Those country are dictatorship
Marxist principles are the foundations of anarchist thought, too, especially anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-communism. You don't need nation states to have Marxist ideology.
@@DoggyHateFire I'm a historian, and Marx is still very influential in Historical circles in the United States. A people's history is more of a pop fiction book than an actual academic work, I would recommend The making of the English working class by EP Thompson who is a Marxian historian. But I would also like to say that as a tool of history, historical materialism is extremely dogmatic and as innefective as Whig History used to be.
@@defeatstatistics7413...The state is part of the public sector, socialism is where workers and the public own the means of production, hence it naturally falls that in socialism, the state takes the role. Even if the state is in the form of trade unions, it is still a state.
Please keep doing ERB reactions! I'm loving these
I Appreciate you acknowledging your own strengths and weaknesses In history knowledge before the start of the video
The Fordlandia Brazil reference went by kinda quickly...
I can't remember if you checked out the Extra History on Ford
At around 8:56 when he’s talking about Henry spouting on his workers. You didn’t mention this but he did very well do this mainly to prevent any talk of unions happening and if you said something that would offend this then Henry’s head of security Harry Bennet and his boys would come over and give you a beatdown
When I was in high school, I found a book that Henry Ford wrote called “The International Jew,” THINKING THAT IT WOULD BE A SPY NOVEL ABOUT A MOSSAD AGENT.
It wasn’t. I didn’t realize anyone could be that spiteful. I burned that book.
Always find discussions about the history (and current) of economics and ideologies fascinating. We all sit on slightly different places on a massive spectrum with no single correct answer.
The difference between watching these when I was 12 and watching them now is instead of getting 5% of the references, I get like a solid 50%.
I may be reading too far into it, but the line about the Model T having no "style" may be a reference to Marx's feeling that modern work under capitalism robbed the worker of creativity. Marx firmly believed that work should be an extension of one's interests. Essentially that by producing something, you are externalizing the best parts of you. Under Ford's system, the workers were forced to create something with no "soul," that the production line killed the creative aspect of production.
I love how much people actually delve into the history of the world with these- truly an Epic series.
~_~
The history behind Marx’s bar, “Beating me is like your city in Brazil: NUTS” is fucking bonkers. Ford had the town (now known as Fordlandia) built in 1928 as a prefabricated industrial town where native Brazilians were made to cultivate rubber for his Model T’s. Much like his factories in America, Ford and his paid cronies policed the town like a totalitarian state. Native Brazilians were given a strict diet from which they could not deviate; no women, tobacco, or alcohol were allowed in the town; the “residents” (more like wage slaves) weren’t even allowed to play football. Needless to say, the Brazilians did not take too kindly to these ridiculous rules. In 1930-only two years after the town’s establishment-the residents rebelled in the cafeteria. This became known as the “Breaking Pans” because the workers hated Ford’s diet so fucking much. They chased the manager and the cook into the jungle until the Brazilian army finally had to step in and violently end the revolt. The town was pretty much abandoned after that. In the two years of its operations, the town and the workers never produced one ounce of useable rubber. Ford was fucking nuts.
I didn't even know they still made these. I remember these rap battles videos from like 2010.
Ford did try to control what his workers ate, drank (no alcohol at a time when most man drank a lot) and thought by having spies search their rooms. Also the city in Brazil thing was Fordlandia a rubber plantation that failed utterly because not only did Ford or his people have an area where all the tress were rubber trees and they were planted close together (meaning disease and parasites easily spread to ravage them) but he insisted the Brazilian workers live like people did in the USA or Western Europe instead of how they were used to living.
You should check out Extra History's series on Henry Ford. It goes into a lot of detail on the man, and just how badly he treated everyone, from Edsel to his workers.
Great Reaction! A Quick recommendation...i would Analyse their verses after each rap Part, it just flows better if you Pause each time one opponent has Finished their part + we still get to enjoy your history lessons :)
While I may not wholeheartedly agree with Marx's prescription, I respect the fact that he did more than just diagnose the diseases of the body politic. Too often, sociologists will present copious, well researched evidence, but back away from writing the 'patient' a prescription. Right or wrong, Marx did.
Of course, there are too many people don't understand that there are a wide variety of different political perspectives within socialism.
Personally, I believe that in circumstances where socialist ideas are not only workable, but provide the best outcomes, then those ideas should be applied. The same goes for liberal ideas, or conservative ones. In the circumstances where they produce the best outcomes they should be applied. If they cease to do so, then they are either updated or replaced with policies that are better. Seems better than lurching wildly from side to side, applying incompatible solutions to problems merely because they're the ones favoured by a bunch of ideologically committed amateurs.
I live for the day that politics is treated more like it is plumbing than as if it's the Superbowl.
"sociologists will present copious, well researched evidence, but back away from writing the 'patient' a prescription." - What sociologists are you reading that don't recommend some kind of prescriptive treatment or policy suggestions?
I live to see the day when you can get people to agree on a common definition of "best outcome". That's where the whole idea falls apart. It's also where ideals of socialism grate against intrinsic individualism: how much of yourself do you want to give up for someone else's best outcome?
@@sike2399..We are also greedy by nature too. Because different people have different views on what exactly their "fair share" is. And we always want more, and more, and more.
It might just be me, but it seems like Ford is resorting to a lot of ad hominems compared to Marx, which is not something you need to do when you're in the right.
They were pretty soft on / ignorant about Marx to be honest, including putting him against Henry Ford in the first place.
Engels wasn't the only guy he took money from (and Engels complained about it at times); he was borrowing money from everyone and it was a lifelong habit, and owed more to his spendthrift nature than anything else.
He and his wife were constantly broke because they lived an expensive lifestyle, and they wrote about hoping for elderly relatives to die in the hope of inheriting something. They would buy clothes they couldn't afford to keep up appearances and he once went on a racist rant against someone who refused to lend him money.
He was also fond of calling people or ideas he disagreed with moronic, idiotic, stupid etc, including those from almost any other Leftist; he advocated revolutionary violence and terror and he had to deny authoritarian-statist potential in his ideas because even in his lifetime people could see it (I don't think the idea that his ideas could even be corrupted by "human greed" jives with his beliefs about how humans and societies actually work either).
They presented a superficial version of Marx. He was a genuinely brilliant genius in many fields and he had a very complex philosophical system they didn't really touch on, but he could also be very arrogant and callous and some of the totalitarian excesses of the Bolsheviks flow directly from his theories.
As for Lincoln, he wrote to him twice and Lincoln's secretary said thank you; Marx celebrated when Lincoln died as well.
What's your source for the claim that Marx "celebrated" when Lincoln died?
@@walterreeves3679 He wrote a letter to Engels after the assassination. They were happy about it as they believed that Lincoln had been too soft and they hoped (vainly, as it turned out) that Andrew Johnson would be harsher on the South.
In line with their accelerationist beliefs, this was less about wanting to see the South punished for being pro-slavery, and more about aggravating the South and accelerating (and thus eventually destabilising) the spread of capitalism and / or provoking a Socialist revolution in the South.
Personally I always thought Marx vs Martin Luther would be a much more suitable battle because of how different and similar they both were, especially in regards to what they stood for as figures
@@HoV326 I think he should have battled either a pro-capitalist philosopher (like Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman) or an Anarchist one (like Mikhail Bakunin, his old enemy).
@@jonathancampbell5231 Where can I find this letter?
One of the things that comes to mind for me is that with how early capitalists treated workers vs how early socialists treated people there doesn’t appear to be a big difference other than whether it’s the government or businesses doing it. You make a great point that greed is the key, and that is precisely why we have laws in place to balance the power of the business owners with the well-being/needs of workers. The balance isn’t always equal and isn’t always good, but it’s important to ensure no system becomes corrupted to the point of endangering the public. And given our modern sense of social norms we don’t realize how precarious every system was in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. Very fun way to get people to think about these things.
True that. Pretty much all the cases of mass starvation under communist regimes are for countries that were largely pre-industrial before the revolution, and where famines were a regular occurrence. Stalin and Mao had their share of famines, but still saw a gradual increase in life expectancy over their reigns, with famine all but becoming history after they left office and more moderate leaders took charge.
The Model T was introduced in 1908 and the design has not changed much until in 1927, when up to 15 million Model Ts were produced and Ford released the new Model A.
Do a video on fords failed city of fordlandia in Brazil. He tried to create a City near rubber so he could control the rubber trade. Very interesting topic
Ur a proper likeable dude, love ur videos vro
I agree with the comment on hypocrisy for those who advocate against something to be part of it. Im good with jokes about it, but in a serious conversation its basically a bad faith argument.
Indeed. The people who use that dig against socialists who are rich or otherwise beneficiaries of capitalism don't ever seem to think that, for example, anticommunist dissidents are hypocrites for participating in and being fed by the communist economy they live in. Or that Adam Smith was a hypocrite for agitating against mercantilism despite mercantilism having produced the prosperity enabling him to do so in the first place.
Um, like the "On paper" criticism isn`t the win capitalists think it is because you could say the same thing for full-on laissez-faire capitalism where selfishness and greed unchecked is supposed to lead to utopia "as if by an invisible hand" , an idea even Adam Smith mocked, also he plagiarized Ib`n al Khal`dun!
Indeed, one could say the same about "great idea in theory, impossible in practice" about a free market that the government doesn't intervene in or favour or disfavour anyone. Because inevitably those who manage to get rich will get disproportionate political influence and can use it to subvert the government to favour their interests. Adam Smith indeed wrote extensively about how the ideal free market that his economic theory is based on is compromised if businessmen either manage to subvert the government to serve their interests, or simply band together to fleece the public rather than compete against each other.
Yep. Everything is socialism's fault, nothing is ever capitalism's fault.
@@anderskorsback4104 Precisement!
Extra History recently finished a series on Henry Ford that touches on alot of the points mentioned in the battle. If you're looking for a follow up series, not a bad place to start.
I don't know if it was planned or it was coincidence but our favorite channel extra history just did a whole series on Henry Ford
Love this video. Would love a reaction to Epic History Tvs Napoleons Marshalls. The Napoleon movie shockingly didnt give ANY Marshall enough credit.
Napoleon movie is like if TLC wanted to adapt 2002 Napoleon series
The Napoleon movie was a big missed opportunity.
7:23 Thats's just wrong. As a german I like to make clear:
Altough you can argue that the NSDAP was right wing (althuogh I think personally thats not true because the NSDAP just did take everything from the Zeitgeist except the racism which was a common thing throughout any political view.),
they did not "leave communism" after Hitler came to power. The primary concern for Marx was *not* to seize the means of production, it was rather to have a socriety without classes. He just saw seizing as the best way to the finish line.
The Nazis just incorperated a little bit of communism in their ideology and this was stable. In their "Völkerbund" they thought that no other classes and differences should seperate the "true german" people.
So the statement that they had left communism somehow is wrong.
While watching the battle I thought to myself VTH would love this...and here we are!
The Dearborn incident killed 4 and injured 20+ of his own workers.
I appreciate your nuanced take on the merits of socialism vs capitalism. I think you hit the nail on the head that as long as the person in charge is selfish and greedy socialism can never work. Sadly, the selfless people who *might* be able to make it work are not typically the type of people who seek positions of leadership and power. I also think it's interesting that both people basically promoted vastly different systems of efficiency.
Socialism could work depending on how its implemented such as with checks and balances and if it is implemented with democracy the people could hold the people in power accountable.
@@michaelwright8896 I have my doubts that democracy would be effective in the long run. The popular choices are seldom healthy sensible choices. And people are swayed too easily into false narratives. You would need an almost Jesus-like figure running the show. Someone uncorruptible by power who genuinely wants the best for everyone. I don't believe such people exist.
For the shooting of protesters, look up the Ford Hunger March. Also great reaction!
Edsel did a fine job running the company as best he could.He just didn't get much freedom to run it because Henry was puppeteering him and making the real descisions, usually to spite Edsel.
Big government/control is not right-winged.
lol
I'd say Marx won it. Henry had some fine points earlier on, but by the fourth body odor joke, he gets very stale. I also don't consider it fair game for him to go after infant mortality. And while Marx's early lines were more on the defense, his final one really blew it out of the water. Mentioning what an awful parent Ford was, his company ties to the nazi war effort and slave labour, to just the common joke acronym of the car.
love your videos! I would to see your take on the Historia Civilis video about work throughout human history, I think you would find his argument compelling, however idk if you would completely agree.
Epic History just recently did Henry Ford as well so that may be a good follow up series to this as well.
And as for another thing you mentioned too about working within the system to advance your own system, that is exactly what the Nazi party did too in Germany as well. They went from an organization that tried to overthrow the government in a coup to becoming a political party and gaining power that way instead.
true, though they never quite got over the whole terrorist thug thing lol
Regarding one of Marx's early lines ("You'd get that from books, but you didn't read shit"), it's probably a reference to a libel lawsuit that Ford filed against the Chicago Tribune in 1919. In response to Ford's opposition to US's military expeditions against Pancho Villa in Mexico, the Chicago Tribune published a piece calling Ford an ignorant idealist and an anarchist. Ford filed suit against the Tribune, asking for $1 million in damages.
Ford's testimony during the trial was widely ridiculed for being inarticulate and incredibly ignorant about American history. Among the highlights of his beliefs were apparently things like believing the American Revolution was fought in 1812 and that Benedict Arnold was a famous author. There was also a quote he gave in an interview with the Chicago Tribune in 1916 that was used against him: "Say, what do I care about Napoleon? What do we care about what they did 500 or 1,000 years ago? I don't know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across and I don't care. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we make today."
Ultimately, Ford did win the libel case, because he was demonstrably not an anarchist, but instead of the $1 million he asked for, the Jury awarded Ford 6 cents in damages.
I mean to say this respectfully, but the idea that, "every ideology is great on paper until people get involved," is often used as an excuse to avoid actually understanding the content and effectiveness of the thought systems in question. It's a retreat into cynicism that assumes that it's best to believe in nothing too strongly to save oneself from mistakes rather than an attempt to use critical thinking to form a firm understanding of the world that calls for action, and that mindset can only be assumed by those who're already favored by the status quo. It's not that the human animal is naturally prone to corruption. It's that various people in history chose to forge their beliefs into weapons in order to abuse others for selfish reasons, and if you actually pay attention to the history of philosophy, you'll find that some beliefs make better weapons than others.
Not sure if it's been mentioned already but if I remember correctly, it's generally agreed that Karl Marx suffered from hidradentitis suppurativa.
For those interested, Knox Hill did a very thorough breakdown of this battle that goes pretty deep into all the lines. Recommend it for those who find these breakdowns interesting.
I don't mind his videos but he's one of the only people that reacts to these that I'm convinced watches and researches them before his reaction. There's just no way somebody never misses a single bar
i don't think he watches them, but he does read the lyrics before hand and read wikipedia about the characters involved in the battle. He said it a couple of time, and i know that he also is a very knowledgeable person normaly. He's a bit of a nerd and never tried to hide it as well.
So yeah, i don't think he watches them, but he does research and read the lyrics before hand, 100%.@@hawkman8706
You mean the guy who looks up the meaning of all the bars?
Ye he does a lot of research prior to the videos but he's decently well backgrounded in music and politics according to himself. Still, he's very thorough and I would recommend giving them a watch especially if you're looking for context on the lesser known lines. And why sleight the guy for putting in work to react to something?
@@bobbuilder6761 if he wants to call it a breakdown then call it that. But he calls it a reaction and pretends like it's his first time seeing it, when clearly it's not. That's my issue with it.
I would class this as a breakdown more than a reaction. Still another interesting video.
Edsel took over the company but Henry bought over 50% of the stocks meaning he was still in charge. It's widely believed that Edsel's stomach cancer was a result of the ulcers caused by the stress of just having Henry Ford as a dad.
To be fair toward both of them:
Henry Ford was the man who not only give us 8/40 hour work time, production line and affordable car was still a strict capitalist who abused his workers to some degree was not upstanding human being and had some racist stands.
Karl Marx was a men who was ahead of his time with his ideas and it shows giving how even today people are very critical of him. But to his credit, his ideas were born only becasue owners of factories and markets of those days were treating their workers no better than slaves with 12-16 hours work time + weekends as well. Most of the things we have today which are considered social programs (pension, medical care, some medicine) are direct results of his ideas + workers own initiative. I do agree that his ideas were twisted to serve the greed of others (Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot and Kim Jong Il) are good examples) but then again capitalism, religion and science did not fare any better as well (workers were treated like slaves and wars started for capitalistic greed, religion was used as excuse to start wars and exterminate entire groups of people and science is known for having most of it's ideas and inventions being used to either hold others into submission or kill them).
So overall, I think Marx was better in this rap battle and in person was better men seeing how his children ended up rich after his passing while Ford's legacy died with him.
It's worth mentioning that several American car companies (notably Ford and GM) had extensive manufacturing plants in Germany. These were retooled to produce vehicles for the German military with the knowledge and permission of the respective head offices at a time when they were actively lobbying to keep America out of the war. It was a sound business decision from their point of view but still massively aided the Nazi war efforts.
There was a Ford factory in the Soviet Union too, using Americans who were gullible enough to have fallen for the siren song of Communism. After Sept. 1, 1939 Hitler simply took control of both Ford and GM manufacturing plants. The Americans had nothing to say about how they were used.
Edsel died long before the Edsel car. He did come up with the Model A successor to the Model T that Henry hated. But Edsel was right, Ford needed to update its cars by the late 20s.
Whether National Socialism counts as a "Socialism" or not comes down to:
1) Which definition of Socialism you are using (there are MANY)
2) Whether or not you accept that there are multiple types of Socialism (Marxists insist that their Socialism is "Scientific" and the only really valid one)
3) Whether you think rampant corruption and fraud in the Nazi regime undermines any claims to "socialism" that they might otherwise have had
5) How much you understand about Socialism and Nazism in the first place
6) How far you distinguish between "National Socialism" and "Hitlerism" (and also, German National Socialism vs the other ones that had different policies and ideologies).
Also keep in mind this argument tends to be deeply ideological in nature, and different camps come down to people not wanting to be associated with Nazism but also wanting it to be associated with their enemies, as well as factoring in things like Soviet propaganda and political differences in the USA vs elsewhere.
It's really a meaningless argument since genocidal anti-Semitism, warmongering and dictatorship are all things that show up in many different ideologies across whatever spectrum you are using, but people like using Nazi as an insult.
Arguably it was a kind of unorthodox Socialism originally. The idea being that it's, well, national. Socialism for the racially pure national in-group, supremacist subjugation for everyone else. Which is what set it apart from the Socialist mainstream and caused it to never be accepted as part of it, as the Socialist mainstream adhered to the idea of international working-class solidarity.
Originally, that is. The Socialist elements of Nazi ideology were largely purged during the Night of the Long Knives 1934. After that, Nazism became pretty much whatever Hitler says it is.
8:25 as a self proclaimed historian how can you gloss over the fact that all socialist projects especially the USSR were never allowed to practice true socialism because of other countries Invading and putting sanctions on them so if it doesn’t work it practice why wasn’t it allowed to fail on its own
Regarding the "Chronic d1ck boils" line, Marx was known to have had several lengthy liaisons with former prostitutes, and it's not hard to get from there to rumors of some STD or another (and given the hygiene of the time it's a pretty safe bet one or the other of them was true). Between that and his skin condition which caused boils, that's where they're going with this line.
As for who won, Ford's performance in this battle is a fine example of why you should never use your best lines first. He started off nailing Marx to the wall and then had nothing to follow it up with.
I think you should try letting each person's verse play through once and then going back and breaking down each line. I think it would flow a lot better
7:48 not to play whataboutism, but Marx wrote a book literally entitled “On the Jewish Question”
I'm pretty sure it was him making fun of the Jewish Question.
It was a response to "the Jewish Question" by Bruno Bauer. He was refuting the Jewish Question, not endorsing it.
Marx was actually much more progressive than people of his time on jewish rights. Then the liberals were content to simply push for religious toleration while he advocated for equal rights.
@@TJ-lh7xg True, but he made anti-Jewish comments in it regardless, and he made anti-Jewish and racist comments in other places as well (yes, despite being Jewish himself).
Yes. As in, a book “on” another book called “The Jewish Question”. Marx was criticising that “the Jewish Question” book
we literally have breadlines here but instead of being in line for the gov or the company to give us bread we stand in line to pay for it 3:42
Such a naive statement
@@hailarwotanaz5848 oh so you get your groceries for free huh? read some books about the topic before replying to people
I don't believe you have, but if you haven't, you should check out Extra History's videos about Henry Ford. That could help more easily contextualize some of Marx's digs in this ERB
I'll have to respectfully disagree with you on the Nazis being right-wing. They were not Socialists in the traditional sense by they had State control of many aspects of life, including large portions of the economy. Hitler was influenced most by Mussolini, who was himself a Socialist for mist of his life, but broke with it over WWI philosophies. At this point, he created Facism which is essentially Socialism light.
State control of certain industries is not an inherently socialist or left-wing practice.
@@VloggingThroughHistory You are absolutely correct: State control of certain industries is not necessarily indicative of socialism/left-wing ideology. However, it was the extent to which the Nazis did this that made them the very embodiment of socialism. The Nazi socialist agenda (Gleichschaltung) merged the economy, and nearly every facet of society into the State. This included business and professional associations, even sport and social clubs were taken over, or placed under the control of, the Third Reich. They even abolished private property. Specifically, the Nazis viewed private property as conditional upon its use (to the State) and not as a fundamental right. If the property was not being used to further the Nazi’s goals, it would be nationalized. They also implemented oppressive taxes on the wealthy and foreigners, which subsidized the poor and working classes. Additionally, heavy social and operational regulations were imposed on businesses in every industry - regulations on the hiring and firing of workers, working hours, vacation time. If the leaders refused to cooperate, the government would expropriate the business, remove the owners. Hugo Younker, of the Younkers Airplane factory, is a notable example that comes to mind.
Extra History has an interesting series about Henry Ford they put out recently
A comparison that would make sense would be Karl Marx v. Adam Smith. Both economists recognized that human beings are self-interested (i.e., 'greedy') but they took away from that different conclusions. Marx thought that would eventually be resolved by power overcoming self-interest (the dictatorship of the proletariat). Smith recognized that self-interest can be channeled through an 'invisible hand' into a force that would promote the general well-being of a society. Smith saw that if people had to trade with one another, rather than impose by force their desires upon each other, all would prosper. The key to 'capitalism' is voluntary exchange, not force. Unfortunately, the term 'capitalism' suggests the key is financial capital, which can be captured and used as a weapon. That's just poorly defined terminology.
BTW, Henry Ford was a failed businessman at first. He ran his first endeavor into the ground, and was headed for the same with his second until the investors took it away from him and made it into the Cadillac Motor Co. It was only when Ford showed the Dodge brothers his more powerful engine than the one Ransome Olds was using, that they--well aware of Ford's flakiness--imposed economic discipline on him (and it was a near thing that Ford produced an economically viable auto, rather than another race car) that the Ford Motor Co. survived.
I love bringing up how TIME magazine made Adolf Hitler their man of the year. In 1938. They followed up that blunder with Stalin taking the title in 1939.
I would say that absolute socialism, which, in modern terms, would be a combination of egalitarian monetary guarantees and forced investment into capital, whether through the state or market parties, simply won't happen as long as greed exists to make people want more than other people, and power exists in some so as to realize that goal at the expense of others. It isn't that such absolute socialism would cure greed: it's that it's true implementation presupposes that greed has already been cured enough that the power brokers in that society are WILLING to implement it.
But I will say that there is still a sliding scale defined by the percentage of the economy generated through social guarantees. If one society spends 10% of its GDP on social guarantees and another spends 20%: the 20% one is, at least as expressed through policy: half as greedy as the one that spent 10%. Obviously: both are far and away from spending all 100% on a socially guaranteed mean per capita output, but one is still obviously more generous.