concerns. They must be allowed to take risks and go broke from time to
time—for Schueller, risk-taking was what being a successful industrialist was
all about—and shareholders would always vote for income over investment,
rejecting risk on the pretext that “it all works fine as it is.” (L’Oréal
remained a private company throughout its founder’s lifetime, going public only
in 1963, six years after Schueller’s death.) Banks’ money was especially to be
avoided, since banks were particularly risk-averse. 5 So were those
who owned a business through inheritance. Schueller thoroughly disapproved of
businesses being inherited. The fact that so many of France’s businesses were
dynastic was, he thought, a great weakness. Not only did it entrench social
immobility, it had left the country economically underdeveloped—to the point,
indeed, where even Schueller felt France’s most important resource was her
land; 6 her industries relied for survival on
tariffs and cartels.
Above all, Schueller felt that being an employer
was about social responsibility. He offered his own experience as an example of
the kind of management vision needed. In 1936, he had mechanized one of his
factories, and two years later production had risen 34 percent, using 11 percent
less in the way of manpower. Each sacked worker represented 12 francs a day
saved, but 15 percent of those let go were unable to find another job, and to
those he continued to pay 10 francs a day out of this saving. He also paid
monthly supplements to his workers’ families, 100 francs for the first child, 50
francs for the second, 200 francs to mothers who stayed home rather than going
out to work. Motherhood was a social service: big families were essential if
France was to be repopulated following the carnage of World War I. 40 He hoped such practices would become
widespread. All that was needed to achieve the revolution was a handful of
strong-minded men like himself. If they persevered, they would prevail.
To connoisseurs of twentieth-century self-made men,
all this will sound oddly familiar. A dynamic employer who rises from poverty to
create a new industry through his own outstanding technical and commercial
abilities, and who then uses part of his profits to create a kind of
self-contained mini-state in which to impose his idea of how things should
be—such a man already, and famously, existed. Schueller’s trajectory, so rare in
France, would have raised no eyebrows in America. And his hero was indeed
American—the automobile magnate Henry Ford. Ford, like Schueller, directed some
of his profits into social services—housing, schooling, hospitals—for the
families of his workers. Like Schueller, he was concerned that these subventions
should be used properly—that is, used as Ford thought best. Like Schueller he
was a political idealist, the idealism, in his case, taking the form of
pacifism. (In 1915, his Peace Ship initiative tried vainly to bring World War I
to an end.) And, like Schueller, he had an economic dada —in Ford’s case, the five-dollar day, his aim being to ensure
that every one of his workers could afford to buy one of his cars.
When Ford instituted the five-dollar day in 1914,
it seemed like an act of reckless generosity. In fact it paid for itself
handsomely as higher wages led to better health and morale, and hence increased
production. But it was not, in practice, as straightforward as it sounded. You could earn five dollars a day, if you worked
uncomplainingly on the production lines Ford had built and led the kind of life
he thought you should lead: not smoking or drinking (Ford did neither), and
putting some of your money into savings. Ford created a Sociological Department
to educate and inspect his workers, and decide how much each man should be
awarded. You didn’t have to be a respectably married nonsmoking teetotaller to
work at Ford’s. But you wouldn’t earn five dollars a day unless you were, any
more than
time—for Schueller, risk-taking was what being a successful industrialist was
all about—and shareholders would always vote for income over investment,
rejecting risk on the pretext that “it all works fine as it is.” (L’Oréal
remained a private company throughout its founder’s lifetime, going public only
in 1963, six years after Schueller’s death.) Banks’ money was especially to be
avoided, since banks were particularly risk-averse. 5 So were those
who owned a business through inheritance. Schueller thoroughly disapproved of
businesses being inherited. The fact that so many of France’s businesses were
dynastic was, he thought, a great weakness. Not only did it entrench social
immobility, it had left the country economically underdeveloped—to the point,
indeed, where even Schueller felt France’s most important resource was her
land; 6 her industries relied for survival on
tariffs and cartels.
Above all, Schueller felt that being an employer
was about social responsibility. He offered his own experience as an example of
the kind of management vision needed. In 1936, he had mechanized one of his
factories, and two years later production had risen 34 percent, using 11 percent
less in the way of manpower. Each sacked worker represented 12 francs a day
saved, but 15 percent of those let go were unable to find another job, and to
those he continued to pay 10 francs a day out of this saving. He also paid
monthly supplements to his workers’ families, 100 francs for the first child, 50
francs for the second, 200 francs to mothers who stayed home rather than going
out to work. Motherhood was a social service: big families were essential if
France was to be repopulated following the carnage of World War I. 40 He hoped such practices would become
widespread. All that was needed to achieve the revolution was a handful of
strong-minded men like himself. If they persevered, they would prevail.
To connoisseurs of twentieth-century self-made men,
all this will sound oddly familiar. A dynamic employer who rises from poverty to
create a new industry through his own outstanding technical and commercial
abilities, and who then uses part of his profits to create a kind of
self-contained mini-state in which to impose his idea of how things should
be—such a man already, and famously, existed. Schueller’s trajectory, so rare in
France, would have raised no eyebrows in America. And his hero was indeed
American—the automobile magnate Henry Ford. Ford, like Schueller, directed some
of his profits into social services—housing, schooling, hospitals—for the
families of his workers. Like Schueller, he was concerned that these subventions
should be used properly—that is, used as Ford thought best. Like Schueller he
was a political idealist, the idealism, in his case, taking the form of
pacifism. (In 1915, his Peace Ship initiative tried vainly to bring World War I
to an end.) And, like Schueller, he had an economic dada —in Ford’s case, the five-dollar day, his aim being to ensure
that every one of his workers could afford to buy one of his cars.
When Ford instituted the five-dollar day in 1914,
it seemed like an act of reckless generosity. In fact it paid for itself
handsomely as higher wages led to better health and morale, and hence increased
production. But it was not, in practice, as straightforward as it sounded. You could earn five dollars a day, if you worked
uncomplainingly on the production lines Ford had built and led the kind of life
he thought you should lead: not smoking or drinking (Ford did neither), and
putting some of your money into savings. Ford created a Sociological Department
to educate and inspect his workers, and decide how much each man should be
awarded. You didn’t have to be a respectably married nonsmoking teetotaller to
work at Ford’s. But you wouldn’t earn five dollars a day unless you were, any
more than
Similar Books
