Henry ford: humanitarian and businessman?

Other American industrialists and factory managers were stunned when automobile manufacturer Henry Ford announced in 1914 that he would pay his assembly line workers $5.00 a day and reduce the working day from nine to eight hours. The average daily wage in American industry at the time was $2.34. He became world famous almost overnight. Opponents derided Ford as a socialist, while supporters called him a great humanitarian. Actually, Ford had simply come to understand that mass production required a society composed of many consumers, not just a few wealthy people amid a multitude of poor. He was making cars for the middle class and knew that sales depended on the existence of a middle class able to afford them, preferably including his own workers. This notion went against the grain of most American businessmen, who believed that low wages, coupled with the highest possible prices, were necessary to make a profit.