Comments on: The Ruins of Fordlândia

By: OKBoomer

OKBoomer — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:46:05 +0000

“Brazil seemed the ideal choice considering that the trees in question were native to the region, and the rubber harvest could be shipped to the tire factories in the US by land rather than by sea.”

This makes no sense, for three reasons. 1. There is no route by land between the US and Brazil (or South America; the highway stops in Panama) 2. There were no major highways in the part of Brazil where Fordlandia was built. 3. Even in the US it is less expensive to ship by water than by land. Avoiding the need to ship the rubber by sea could not have been one of the motives for establishing Fordlandia.

By: JohnMayer

JohnMayer — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 06:53:05 +0000

@Misfit7707
I can’t imagine why the entrepreneur you describe worked so hard to bring wasabi to the states when most Americans wouldn’t know wasabi if it bit them. I was happy that a Chinese restaurant opened near me, till I discovered I could eat their bland wasabi by the spoonful. Real wasabi has yet to gain a foothold here.

http://www.realwasabi.com/News/index.asp

By: User69

User69 — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 08:37:35 +0000

Joethecoat said “Uh… this sounds scarily like the way some American politicians have viewed other countries… also, “Brazil seemed the ideal choice considering that … the rubber harvest could be shipped to the tire factories in the US by land rather than by sea”. What? Sea is always cheaper. Foolish Mr Ford. Should have learned from the Romans.”.
Astute observation, Joe. This scarily reminds me of what America’s military-industrial complex is spending TRILLIONS of dollars doing in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the consequences could be far worse than just wasting trillions of our tax $$$$$.

By: johnb3491

johnb3491 — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 01:57:39 +0000

Enter your comment here.Failure is a chance to begin again more intellegently. – Henry Ford
Success is on the far side of failure. – T. J. Watson (founder of IBM)
We all fell down learning to walk. – John B

By: Ken W

Ken W — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 04:21:03 +0000

Harvey Firestone founded a 220 square mile rubber plantation about the same time in Liberia, west central Africa. He also built an American style town on the plantation named Harbel. It has American style homes, stores, golf club, swimming pool, etc. Even a Coca-Cola plant. He also built a rubber research center run by botanists on the plantation. The plantation has been very successful; shipping millions of pounds of rubber and millions of gallons of latex to the USA over the years. It was run for many years with American management and Liberian workers. In recent years the number of Americans and Europeans have gone down as qualified Liberians have been hired for many of the middle and lower management jobs.

Henry Ford hired “managers” to make decisions. Firestone hired experts (experienced botanists, scientists, rubber plantation managers, etc.).

By: galonga

galonga — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 02:54:04 +0000

What I find most amazing on this story along with some of the comments afterwards is to see that so little has changed for some american mindsets (“Chanticrow” is a prime example), even though almost 100 years have passed.

Ford FAILED. Period. His “american way of life” down-the-throat method and the clear fact that he thought that only because he was american he was doomed to success was the reason.

And guess what would happen if you got these backward people and send them there too? They would ALSO fail. But they would bow their head and accept it was because of their own backwardness? Nope! :)

By: goopy

goopy — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:54:55 +0000

I enjoyed this article. It is indeed an amazing story.

I actually wrote a novel set in Fordlandia. It is still in the pre-release stages – I haven’t opened it to internet searches. It took me six years to write and involved trips to the Amazon. It follows the story of a Ford executive and a rubber tapper. I would appreciate it if you checked it out: http://www.returnofthedeji.com (under ‘Purchase Books’). I am happy to send you a free digital copy as well if you e-mail me.

Thanks,
Deji

By: lordasm

lordasm — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:21:16 +0000

Well, as being a Brazilian (even quite far away from Fordlândia (or Fordland, translating the name), what killed the Rubber Cycle in North Brazil was not the invention of synthetic rubber, was the fact that British stole rubber tree saplings from there and used it to make plantations in Asia.
Of course American lifestyle would be met with hostility. In South Brazil (where I live) and in Southeast, people would be much more receptive to the American lifestyle, but even for Southern brazilians, North is a very different place and has a very different culture (I know because I’m married with a Northern brazilian girl, and even in my marriage, cultural differences were clear).
First of all, the working shift… In the rain forest, Sun is too strong and climate is very humid, what makes the place VERY warm. It is quite hard to work in such conditions, and that’s why people that do rural work works very early, stop around 10 o’clock, and resume work in the afternoon.
Another problem is the food thing. As it is a very hot place, and the population have a lot of indigenous influence in their culture, they eat a lot light foods, like fruits (acai, bacuri, cupuacu) and stuff made with cassava roots (like flour, a liquid extracted from it called tucupi) and sea food (shrimps and fish mainly)… Hamburgers, bacon, sausages, this kind of stuff, make you very uncomfortable to work in such a hot place, worink in middday sun after eating that kind of stuff could only end in stomach aches, vomiting, and employees not being able to work.
Another thing that I think would be a MAJOR problem is Ford’s ban on alcohol. Northern brazilians do not smoke so often (I never saw someone smoking there, opposed to South Brazil, where ppl smoke a lot), but it is a national habit (at least in North and Northeast) to drink pinga, specially at lunch and after sunset, and this would really be a problem.
I do not know about other things, such as regional dances (like Cumbia and Carimbó), but I imagine if American way was enforced, this would piss off the workers as well (being unable to manifest their own culture)

Resuming, there’s no way a North brazilian rural worker would like the american way of life, it is radically different, and it is a very bad idea to try to enforce a new culture in a place that love and give a lot of credit for their own culture.

Brazil in 1920 was a quite recently formed republic (it was made in 1889), finally freed from the monarchy, and Brazil was quite suspicious of foreign capital, due to its previous experiences with Portugal and Great Britain, so it was natural that the brazilian government didnt help Henry Ford. North Brazil still is a large demographic desert, so imagine in 1920…. Brazil had little interest in developing there.

Henry Ford’s failure here in Brazil was due to his lack of planning, his arrogance in thinking he needed no botanist, that his managers would know how to work in a VERY different climate, with VERY different conditions, with a VERY different culture, for being a fool not asking a geologist to query the land before buying it, his lack of comprehension that Brazilians do not want to be like Americans, they have their own way and it works very well here (not better or worse than the american way, just different) and very bad timing (in 1920 the rubber cycle was ending and Belem and Manaus belle epoque was failing).

By: Intelligoth

Intelligoth — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:17:04 +0000

“his efforts to spread his American “healthy lifestyle” were met with resentment and hostility”

It seems that any time Americans try to export their value systems, they are met with significant resistance. Just an observation.

By: katieq95

katieq95 — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 21:53:57 +0000

[quote]MJ Smith said: “Wow. Amazing the stuff that South America lets happen sometimes.

‘Sure, come here! Have this land, use it, try and change our people!’

Wouldn’t fly well in this day and age.”[/quote]

that is really dumb and rude to say. Henry ford had a reputation as a wealthy and intelligent man. He *BOUGHT* that land to try something and south america trusted him. there is no reason not to trust him he hadn’t known that rubber trees could be manipulated the way he thought. I’m sure you didn’t either you donkey!