To award producers differentially by how much training they have had, or even by how hard they work, would recreate class divisions and the need for a state to oversee everything.

With the economy stuttering, the social and class divisions that emerged during the confrontation will be even harder to heal.

Sloan organised his company into divisions that specialised in cars "for every purse and purpose" and he fashioned a managerial class that turned GM into the world's biggest company.