"Mass production did not merely change how goods were made, but who could consume them." Discuss with reference to the inter-war automobile industry.

Mass production means making standardised goods in very large volumes on a moving assembly line. Between the wars it turned the motor car from a luxury of the rich into a consumer good. The automobile industry shows that it changed the factory and also widened the market, though only partly.

Changing how cars were made

• Moving assembly line: Ford's 1913 Highland Park line cut assembly time from 12.5 hours to 93 minutes [2].
• Division of labour: each worker repeated a single task. Profit now came from volume rather than craft skill.
• Diffusion to Europe: by the 1920s British makers were competing on low prices. At the 1926 Olympia Motor Show in London, "£100" cars were the best-sellers [1].

Changing who could consume

• Falling prices: the Model T's price fell from $850 (1908) to $260 by 1924 [2]. It is regarded as the first affordable automobile, with over 15 million sold in the US alone [3].
• Middle-class motoring: nearly 25,000 "£100" cars were ordered before Olympia opened, and enquiries came "from all over the world" [1]. The car was becoming a traded consumer good.
• Workers as consumers: Ford's Five-Dollar Day (1914) doubled wages [4]. Its five-day, 40-hour week (1926) [5] gave workers more free time. Together these made factory workers potential car buyers.

Limits of this 'democratisation'

• Two-tier market: luxury cars at Olympia still cost over £3,000, more than 30 times the cheapest models [1].
• Cost borne by workers: the dull, repetitive work pushed annual labour turnover as high as 370%. Higher pay came with surveillance: Ford's Sociological Department canvassed workers' homes [4].
• Income ceiling: ownership spread mainly to the middle classes, not yet to most wage-earners. The boom also proved fragile once the 1929 Depression cut demand for costly goods.

Mass production changed both the factory and the market: higher volume lowered costs, and lower prices widened the circle of buyers. But buying power grew only as far as incomes did, and much of the cost fell on workers. For India's manufacturing ambitions, the lesson is that scale must go with decent work and rising wages (SDG 8). Then the people who make goods can also afford to buy them, and mass production also becomes mass prosperity.