Henry Ford was no altruist by any stretch of the imagination

In fact, he was a deeply flawed individual in many respects. However, he was wise enough to recognize that the the dramatically increased productivity enabled by the moving assembly lines that had been introduced in his factories in 1913 meant he could pay his workers better, thus enabling them to spend more so they could buy products like the Model Ts coming from those same factories.

Despite the fact that higher wages would cost him more up front, he realized that filling wallets would ultimately benefit his business in the long run by stimulating demand. If only more of today's executives would recognize that stagnant middle and working class incomes go hand in hand with overall economic malaise we might actually start to make some progress on growing the economy.