100 pages • 3 hours read
The Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America
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Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 4-6
Chapters 7-9
Chapters 10-12
Chapters 13-15
Chapters 16-18
Chapters 19-21
Chapters 22-24
Chapters 25-27
Chapters 28-30
Chapters 31-33
Chapters 34-36
Chapters 37-39
Chapters 40-42
Chapters 43-45
Chapters 46-48
Chapters 49-51
Chapters 52-54
Chapters 55-57
Chapters 58-60
Chapters 61-63
Chapters 64-66
Chapters 67-69
Chapters 70-72
Chapters 73-75
Chapters 76-78
Chapters 79-81
Chapters 82-84
Chapters 85-92
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaChapters 34-36Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 34 Summary
Ford travels to Altadena, California, to winter with his wife and son. A writer who lives in the neighborhood comes to visit, hoping to convince Ford to share his pacifist and communist views. Although Ford initially insists that “nobody could or would or should work without profits” (86), he soon contradicts himself by telling how, during wartime, he offered his plant to the government for free. When the writer points out the contradiction, and suggests that sacrificing the profit motive for the common good might be as appropriate in peacetime as in war, Ford is sympathetic to the idea in principle. However, his own experience has shown him that government is inefficient and corrupt, so he is reluctant to accept the idea of government ownership of industry.
The author suggests that private interest creates the motive for corruption, but Ford cannot accept this idea: “Graft to him was the very nature of politics; also waste and incompetence” (88). According to Ford, even the post office and fire department should be run by private industry rather than publicly owned.
The writer argues that, just as monarchy is only good insofar as monarchs are good, private industry is a good system only insofar as those who run it had the public interest at heart. He also compares Ford to Ford’s critic, Theodore Roosevelt; according to the writer, Roosevelt is blind to social and economic forces and sees only individuals. For this reason, “for the rest of his life he will play with the reactionaries” (89). The writer cautions Ford not to share the same fate.
Chapter 35 Summary
One of Ford’s neighbors is King C. Gillette, the owner of the Gillette Corporation. Gillette advocates the formation of “a gigantic ‘People’s Corporation,’ which would use the people’s money to purchase the stocks of all going industries and operate them in the public interest” (89). He approaches Ford, hoping to win the latter over to this plan.
While Gillette has spent “thirty or forty years [...] making notes of the infinite varieties of capitalist waste” (90), Ford “remain[s] the super-individualist, who would have liked to turn the public schools over to private ownership” (89) and continues to believe that the capitalist system will “bring plenty and security to all” (90). Gillette tries in vain to convince Ford that the profit system will inevitably lead even a league of nations to “play power politics, the very thing that got us into the war” (91). For Ford, the benefits and desirability of the profit motive are an article of faith “touched with mysticism” (91).
Chapter 36 Summary
Ford returns to Detroit to attend to legal matters. One stems from 1916, when it seemed likely that the US and Mexico would go to war. Ford told his workers that anyone who joined the National Guard would lose their job in his factory; the Chicago Tribune called him an anarchist, and he sued the newspaper for libel.
At the trial, Ford encounters a “general inquiry into [his] life-history and [...] moral and intellectual totality” (93). The Tribune has paid researchers to uncover embarrassing, “absurd and mistaken” deeds and statements in Ford’s life, and its lawyers plan to “cross-question and expose him” (93). Ford displays his ignorance of American history and his inability to read long words, but the vast majority of his customers are indifferent to these flaws. The jury concludes that Ford is not an anarchist, and he wins the suit.
Chapters 34-36 Analysis
Ford’s interactions with the unnamed writer and Gillette show the strength of Ford’s belief in the capitalist system; even Gillette, a fellow wealthy industrialist, is unable to convince Ford, using documents and data, that capitalism can be wasteful. The writer’s admonition to Ford (that he will end up on the side of reactionaries) foreshadows Ford’s future. Sinclair portrays the elderly Ford as a reactionary and worse.
The interaction with the writer also serves to illuminate certain aspects of Ford’s character and thinking. First, it suggests that Ford has good intentions, but his epistemic flaws (he sees only individuals, and appears unable to conceive of problems systemically; his tendency to contradict himself suggests that his views are not the end product of any sort of rational inquiry, but are simply unexamined beliefs) will lead him to make moral mistakes.
The writer’s revelation that Ford contradicts himself suggests a parallel with Abner, whom Sinclair presents as unskilled at thinking: “[Ford] was going to do the thinking, not merely for himself, but for Abner—and this was something which suited Abner perfectly. His powers of thinking were limited, and those he possessed had never been trained” (25). Although Ford is happy to think for Abner or any other employee, he is not better than them at thinking logically; his strengths are his inventiveness, problem-solving skills, and business acumen, rather than his intellect as such. This similarity to Abner supports the idea that Abner and Ford are foils for one another.
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