The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work

PUT THE JOB FIRST AND MONEY SECOND
The economic leg of Ford’s universal code has already stated unequivo-
cally that money has to come from work, and that it cannot come from 
any other source. The following material explores the role of the sci-
entific leg, the removal of waste from every activity, in the abolition of 
poverty.
* * *
The underlying causes of poverty, as I can see them, are essentially due to the 
bad adjustment between production and distribution, in both industry and 
agriculture—between the source of power and its application. The wastes due 
to lack of adjustment are stupendous. All of these wastes must fall before 
intelligent leadership consecrated to service. So long as leadership thinks 
more of money than it does of service, the wastes will continue. Waste is pre-
vented by far-sighted not by short-sighted men. Short-sighted men think first 
of money. They cannot see waste. They think of service as altruistic instead 
of as the most practical thing in the world. They cannot get far enough away 
from the little things to see the big things—to see the biggest thing of all, which 
is that opportunist production from a purely money standpoint is the least 
profitable.

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Why Be Poor?  •  169
Service can be based upon altruism, but that sort of service is not usually 
the best. The sentimental trips up the practical.