Analysis Of William Allen s The Dodge Brothers

According to Henry Ford, the Founder of the Ford Motor Company, â€Å"the purpose of the corporation is to produce good products cheaply and to provide increasing employment at good wages and to only incidentally make money.† (Allen 38) In contrast, the Dodge brothers, (the Founders of the Dodge division of Fiat) who owned roughly ten percent of the equity in Ford’s company, argued that the shareholders owned the enterprise and were entitled to force the directors, in this case Ford, to distribute some of the firm’s accumulated profit. The Justices of the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Ford must pay the Dodge brothers dividends and not use the excess cash to lower the cost of his vehicles for sale. Although this case was settled nearly one†¦show more content†¦(Allen 37-42) The decision in Dodge v Ford Motor Company 170 NW 668 (Michigan 1919) supports this theory since Ford was required to distribute some of the company’s earnings to its shar eholders. Proponents of this theory would argue that corporations do not have a responsibility to anybody other than their shareholders, i.e., the firm should focus solely on their income and increasing shareholder’s wealth. Interestingly, there are not many organizations in modern society that do not give to charitable/political organization or support the environment, but that does not mean that this model is obsolete and/or not prevalent. For example, many believe that the Foxconn Technology Group, the manufactures of many Apple products, focuses primarily on wealth maximization and not social welfare. The firm is focused on efficiency and has many assembly lines to manufacture their products. The firm is notorious for working employees very long hours. Many employees have committed suicide and the company often suffers from employee riots. Apple often has to come to the defense of their manufacturer of these social issues. The company said â€Å"Apple is committed to the highest standards of social responsibility across our worldwide supply chain†¦We insist that all of our suppliers provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes wherever our products are