The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work

The Universal Code Is Impartial
The concept of impartiality is vital because, once an organization’s stake-
holders understand that they are dealing with natural and scientific laws 
instead of ideologies, they will accept and conform to the universal code. 
Ford (1922, p. 56) writes explicitly:
If a man whom we feel to be bad turns out to be a success, it is because he 
has fulfilled the law of success. If a man whom we feel to be a very good 
man is a failure, it is because he has failed to fulfill the law of success.
This “law of success” is neither Democratic nor Republican, nor is it 
Capitalist, Communist, or Socialist. It is an inarguable and impartial 
law of economic, scientific, and human nature. When people understand 
and accept it as such, many seemingly insurmountable problems van-
ish like the illusions they are. These problems include friction between 
Capital and Labor, which Ford proves to be a totally unnecessary dys-
function. Ford (1922, pp. 228–231) adds a chapter that contrasts “Man’s 
Laws and Nature’s Law,” and shows how the latter is supreme over the 
former.
The concept of the law of the situation, in which everybody takes direc-
tion from the needs of the job as opposed to another person, underscores 
the scientific and impartial nature of Ford’s business approach. This fur-
ther depersonalizes the universal code and frees it of any taint of partisan 
or ideological origin. It is simply a proven and incontestable fact of Nature, 
like a mathematical equation:
Acceptance of Economic Law + Application of Scientific Law + 
Conformance to Behavioral Law = Success.
The reader who understands and internalizes Ford’s universal code can 
overcome many of the self-limiting paradigms that afflict modern busi-
nesses and other organizations. These include, for example, the belief that 
healthcare is a zero-sum game in which escalating costs are the price of 
quality. The truth is that the escalating costs are the price of poor quality, 
inefficiency, and avoidable harm to patients. The Henry and Clara Ford 

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Editor’s Introduction  •  xix
Hospital proved unequivocally that inexpensive world-class healthcare is 
achievable, and offshore hospitals for medical tourism are proving it yet 
again. If the reader must then explain the universal code to others, he or 
she can add that it is also implacable.