The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work

Industry Removes the Need for Charity
Remember that My Life and Work is not a theory or idea, but a proven set 
of synergistic methods. Ford did not merely say that industry ought to 
make charity unnecessary; he proved that a hospital and a trade school 
could support themselves while they rendered world-class service.
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Industry organized for service removes the need for philanthropy. 
Philanthropy, no matter how noble its motive, does not make for self-reliance. 
We must have self-reliance. A community is the better for being discontented, 
for being dissatisfied with what it has. I do not mean the petty, daily, nag-
ging, gnawing sort of discontent, but a broad, courageous sort of discontent 
which believes that everything which is done can and ought to be eventually 
done better. Industry organized for service—and the workingman as well as 
the leader must serve—can pay wages sufficiently large to permit every fam-
ily to be both self-reliant and self-supporting. A philanthropy that spends its 
time and money in helping the world to do more for itself is far better than 
the sort which merely gives and thus encourages idleness. Philanthropy, like 
everything else, ought to be productive, and I believe that it can be. I have 
personally been experimenting with a trade school and a hospital to discover 

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Why Charity?  •  191
if such institutions, which are commonly regarded as benevolent, cannot be 
made to stand on their own feet. I have found that they can be.