Industrial capitalism and free enterprise have brought the world outstanding innovations that in many ways have improved ease of social connection, evolved recreation, made ways to carry out tasks more efficient, expanded abilities to travel, and much more.
When Henry Ford revolutionized the assembly line in manufacturing and concretized the 40 hour work week, his intentions were to simplify and make work more efficient and easier for the middle class. These intentions were profound at the time and had a great effect on industrialized morale.
All of Ford’s innovations in these areas came during and between WWI and WWII. In fact, many of the technological innovations in motors for cars and tractors were also being applied to the manufavturing for war machines as well. A great sense of need and pride was being thrust into the economy in order to produce these machines and fight against what was considered to be a great enemy.
An after-effect of the ethical and value based morale reasoning that became enforced during the war era was an unwavering support for industry as “the answer”. This occutred within the United States American sense of identification and idealism, as well as in that of other foreign powers. Industry became a symbol of the patriotic.
The depression era also occurred within this time period. During the depression, grocers around the USA began to form alliances and cooperatives in order to fight scarcity of food and resources that had resulted previously during WWI. The alliances and cooperatives ended up transforming intk what are known to be the large grocery chains of today.
The original motive was to guard against food scarcity and assure that no US citizen would ever be lacking. There was a lot of fear lingering from the last scarcity period, and the grocers were maneuvering to assure that this would not happen again.
The grocery stores became a solution to this fear of scarcity and lack, and the preservation of grocery chains within industry became supported with a morale sense similar to that of industry itself. Grocery chains became part of “the answer” that is preseeved within the US American psyche. And the preservation for both industry and grocery supply chains is l ultimateky fueled by a lingering social and cultural PTSD.
During the era where these innovations and solutions were being sought, electricity was just beginning to become wide-spread; radio was just being invented; and only 50% of the US American population had a telephone by 1945.
The world, in a way, was much smaller and slower…
The quickening pace of evolved technologies has empowered many people to be able to do more in less time, yet being constantly busy and spread out between multiple domains- work, family, house, self, and other- has had detrimental consequences.
Concurrently over the course of modernization, grocery chains have become more about making money than the preservation of food and resources for the population. Marketing campaigns, brand control of supply and markets, and restrictive distribution alliances have resulted in grocery chains becoming a closed-system that ultimately controls food supply.
Attachment to assembly line manufacturing mentality and the 40 hour work week have been carried over as an ethos within the culture that is also debilitating to physical, mental, and emotional health. It is the residue of a bygone era.
The supply chain that exists is a byproduct of these dinosaurs hanging on from the bygone era. In order to have health, a new healthy form of supply chain must be created that doesn’t destroy the planet or the people.
The various emerging and re-emerging sustainable innovations, movements, applications, and considerations that are being considered within all the various points within the supply chain indicate a remodeled form of thinking and working that includes technology, harmonic systems theory, relationship-based consideration, and long-term consequence considerate strategy.
We live in a time of a new solution- a “new answer”. We can feel just as much pride in this.
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