Must-Read: Edward Filene (1931): Successful Living in This Machine Ag

Edward Filene (1931): Successful Living in This Machine Age: “Mass Production is not simply large-scale production…

…It is large-scale production based upon a clear understanding that increased production demands increased buying, and that the greatest total profits can be obtained only if the masses can and do enjoy a higher and ever higher standard of living. For selfish business reasons, therefore, genuine mass production industries must make prices lower and lower and wages higher and higher, while constantly shortening the workday and bringing to the masses not only more money but more time in which to use and enjoy the ever-increasing volume of industrial products.

Mass Production, therefore, is production for the masses. It changes the whole social order. It necessitates the abandonment of all class thinking, and the substitution of fact-finding for tradition, not only by business men but by all who wish to live successfully in the Machine Age. But it is not standardizing human life. It is liberating the masses, rather, from the struggle for mere existence and enabling them, for the first time in human history, to give their attention to more distinctly human problems.