Source ｜ 智 本社 （ID ： zhibenshe0-1）
Author ｜ Qinghe President of Zhibensha
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Editor’s note: After this epidemic, Chinese people have known “whistleblower” and understood “in a world without whistle, each of us is a victim”. This article pays tribute to Ralph Nader, a well-known whistler in history, and realized “a world with whistle” from Nader’s fighting life.
“Obviously, Detroit (the manufacturer) is pursuing fashion, cost, performance, and calculated end-of-life periods, not safety-despite 5 million accidents every year, 40,000 people The car accident killed, 110,000 people were permanently disabled and 1.5 million were injured.
In April 1959, an article titled “Unable to Buy a Safety Car” presented the issue of automobile safety in the eyes of the American people.
At that time, Detroit car makers didn’t care about this “popular” article, they did not expect that the good times of the auto giants would soon be over.
The American people are also surprised. As early as the 1920s, American families gradually became more popular with cars. After the Second World War, the US consumption tide rose, automobile consumption rose, and various types of models also emerged endlessly. With the advent of the highway, the speed of car design has also greatly increased.
In order to cater to the consumer market, car manufacturers pursue fashion and speed in car design and manufacturing, while ignoring safety. Although the car accident rate rose sharply at that time, the American people and the government generally believed that the cause of the accident was mainly driving too fast and improper personal operation, and they did not think of the design and manufacturing defects of the car manufacturers.
The author of this article, named Ralph Nader, was only 25 years old.
Nard was the first person to direct a safety incident to a car defect and was the world’s first promoter of a car recall system.
At the time this article was published, Nader didn’t know that he would start an uphill and arduous human rights life.
In the era of “big corporateism” and “economic growth supremacy”, Nader almost tore through his own voice and set up the banner of consumer rights, and promoted the establishment of the United States for half a century.A complete set of consumer protection bills.
He is known as “the father of the modern consumer movement”, “the consumer protector” and “the first American citizen.” He is also the “villain”, “clown” and “actor” of opponents.
Logic of this article:
I. Ivy “heterogeneous”
Second, “Every owner should thank him”
Three, how “Nad Warrior” changed the world
1. Ivy “heterogeneous”
Nad was born in 1934 to an immigrant family in Connecticut, USA. Nad’s father lived in Lebanon in his early years, when Lebanon was ruled by the Ottoman Empire and France.
Nard’s father is very dissatisfied with the political and social environment of this country. He once said to others, “When your enemy is your judge, who should you complain to?”
At the age of 19, Nad’s father broke into the United States with $ 20 alone. After earning a fortune on the East Coast, he returned to Lebanon to marry Nad’s mother, and the two later moved to the United States to open a restaurant in Connecticut called the Plateau Badge.
However, it wasn’t long before the Great Depression broke out that Nad’s father’s restaurant provided food and water for the hungry unemployed.
Nard was born just after the Great Depression. Nader inherited the cynicism, good justice, and independent thinking of Old Nader.
Old Nader is concerned about political struggle and social injustice, but instead of writing articles, he likes to use legal means to solve problems. When Nad was only four or five years old, Nad took him to the hearing. In the court, the lawyers fought fiercely, the jury spoke up to the people, and the judge judged the case cautiously.
Since then, Little Nad has set out to become a lawyer, a lawyer who lives by the people.
Old Nader constantly encourages Little Nader to think independently about social and legal issues. “Ralph, what did you learn at school today? How did you learn to believe, or how to think?” Whenever Nad returned from school, Old Nad would ask him that.
Nard Jr. began to read the Record of the National Assembly at the age of 14, and was interested in works that exposed social issues and political scandals, such as Lincoln Stephens’ Disgrace in the City. Little Nader and his father often discuss partisanship, racial discrimination, refugee issues, and more.
In 1951, Nader was admitted to Princeton University, studied law at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Relations, and began pursuing his dream of a lawyer.
But as soon as he entered school, the kid with Old Nader’s rebellious genes became incompatible with Princeton students. As an old-fashioned Ivy League school, “white shoe doctrine” swept the campus-students like to wear white shirts, khaki pants, and white suede shoes to show their fashion and schooling labels. To ridicule them, Little Nad once went to class in a bathrobe and slippers.
In Princeton, he stayed away from his classmates, entertainment, and pastime, plunged into the library, often read books until late at night, so that the administrator simply gave him a key.
On the way to the library, Nader found a few birds dead on the roadside. So, he carried the dead bird into the Princeton Daily office and told the editors that the bird might have died from the DDT sprayed on campus trees. I hope you can study whether DDT is safe.
The editors laughed at him and said that Professor Princeton Chemistry is the best chemist in the United States and they know better than you whether DDT is safe.
However, Nader insisted that the dead bird was closely related to DDT, and went back to write an article to the daily newspaper, but the article was abandoned by the daily newspaper.
Ten years later, Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” has made a splash in the United States, and it explains the dangers of DDT to animals and the environment. Driven by Carson, the U.S. government announced in 1972 the ban on the DDT that Nader had suspected.
Nard’s skeptical spirit and independent thinking indicate that he will “go darker and darker” on this path.
After graduating from Princeton University, Nader successfully entered Harvard Law School.
During his time at Princeton, Nader had a hobby for free riders. He talked to various people on the road, asked about their work, and listened to their complaints. Nader saw a lot of car accident scenes on the road, and since then he started to pay attention to car safety issues.
After graduating from Princeton University in 1955, Nader successfully entered Harvard Law School to continue his studies. However, he did not like the famous Ivy League school that everyone admired.
“Harvard Law School”, he later recalled:
“Never mention the question of self-sacrifice. Not at all! … Idols are Holmes, Cardoso, and Lenid Hand. They are the heroes, the indifferent, the naked, the People appreciated by the authority. Ghosts know why lawyers should be like this. “
Nard was disappointed by the narrow intellectualism and moral interest of Harvard Law School and teachers and students.
He said that everyone there was thinking about how to make money with the law, without caring about social injustice, civil rights, political issues and environmental change. He mocked Harvard as a “factory of expensive tools” to serve the power.
Obviously, Nader and Ivy’s delicate egoists and “white shoeists” are not the same. In Nader’s eyes, the Ivy Elite is probably the “elaborate egoist”
At Harvard Law School, Nader often skips school. He went to the mountains of Mexico for anthropological surveys; he went to native Indian neighborhoods, and the poverty of the locals shocked him.
His favorite thing is to travel alone by hitchhiking. During a trip, Nader witnessed an unusually tragic accident scene-a child’s head was cut off by the door of a glove box.
This image has been engraved in Nad’s mind. Since then, he began to focus on car safety issues.
At that time, the media and most scholars regarded car accidents as the consequences of extremely common accidents or improper driving. However, what Nader saw and his inherent skeptical instincts told him that there must be a mystery in the car.
So, when he returned to school, he ran to the nearby MIT to study automotive technology and understand the design principles and safety rules of automotive operation. Soon, he published his research in Harvard Law Records (Nard is a reporter for the newspaper) under the heading “American Cars: Designing for Death.”
This may be the first article looking for the cause of the accident from the design of the car, but it didn’t attract much attention at the time. In 1959, Nader, who had graduated, again published an article on car safety in “National” magazine, entitled “You Can’t Buy a Safe Car”.
This article states that U.S. automakers ignore safety issues and spend most of their money on stylish designs. Every year, 5 million car accidents, 40,000 deaths, 110,000 life-long disabilities, and 1.5 million injuries are unable to change this fact. In turn, the neglect and savings of manufacturers in security design is the key to many tragedies.
Nard shouted loudly, prompting some people to be sober, but he was too weak.
A few years after graduating from college, Nader has been working part-time and part-time. He first worked as a private lawyer in Hartford, followed the press team to Cuba to interview Fidel Castro, then went to the Nordic to inspect the inspector system, and then went to the Soviet Union,South American countries travel.
He relies on writing to make a living, providing travel stories and interview manuscripts for The American Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, and The New Republic.
On March 15, 1962, President John F. Kennedy issued the “Special Presidential Address on the Protection of Consumers’ Interests” in Congress, which first introduced the “Four Rights” of famous consumers,
That is: the right to security; the right to correct information; the right to freely choose; the right to put forward consumer opinions. ——In 1983, the International Consumers Association designated March 15 as the International Consumer Rights Day.
President Kennedy’s “Four Rights” was a great encouragement for Nad then.
In early 1964, Nader ended his journey, came to Washington with a suitcase, and began his “consumer rights” life …
2. “Every owner should thank him”
Previously, Nader’s “You Can’t Buy a Safe Car” and related series of articles have attracted the attention of Moynihan, the assistant minister of labor of the federal government. Moynihan asked Nad to come to the White House as a consultant on car safety policies.
As soon as he arrived at the White House, he signed a $ 3,000 publishing contract with a publisher, determined to write a book on car safety to awaken American car consumers.
To this end, he turned into a “spy”, secretly entered the Detroit factory, talked with automotive engineers and front-line workers, and learned about the safety design investments and rules of several major Detroit car manufacturers.
After obtaining a wealth of first-hand information, Nader started to write, but when the manuscript was almost finished, he was lost in a taxi, and Nader could only rewrite it.
In November 1965, this difficult research result, “Unsafe at Any Speed: The Dangers of American Automotive Design,” was published, and it started a rights movement that changed the history of human consumption.
Nard wrote on the first page of the book dedicated to “Frederick Hughes Condon”-a Harvard classmate of Nader who was paralyzed after a car accident.
This book uses the main title “No speed is safe” and points out the misunderstanding of American car consumers at that time-speed caused car accidents; substandardThe title “Dangers of American Automobile Design” revealed the hidden safety hazards and defects of American automobile manufacturers in product design, and at the same time, too much pursuit of automobile exterior design.
Nard used General Motors in the first chapter of the book, criticizing one of the most popular models at the time-GM’s Corvair-Corve became a strong rival to the Volkswagen Beetle after its launch. , And was listed on the cover of “Time” magazine, and also won the “Car of the Year” title of “Motor Trend” magazine in 1960.
However, this car has a flaw in its design-flaws in the suspension system can cause the car to skid violently and cause a rollover.
In fact, GM engineers have already discovered these problems. However, company leaders refused to address these safety hazards because it cost $ 15 to improve each vehicle.
Nard criticized General Motors for its life-threatening pursuit of profit, which is “the worst irresponsible behavior of industry in the 20th century.” He told car owners that car manufacturers blamed the accident on “crazy people sitting behind the steering wheel,” and that the root cause was flaws in body design that GM leaders were fully aware of.
Nard also used the professional “second collision” concept in the book-the collision between the passenger and the interior of the vehicle after the first impact of the vehicle. He believes that the damage caused by the “second collision” is often more serious than the first collision, and the main responsibility is for defects in the safety design of the car.
At that time, General Motors was the world ’s largest automaker, controlling half of the US auto market. Even though Nader was holding the title of a consultant to the White House Labor Department, it was difficult to challenge GM, and his book did not attract much attention at the beginning.
However, more than a hundred Kewell owners brought GM to court before and after the book was published, which caused GM executives a headache. This book is like pouring fuel on the fire. Many car owners are worried about the hidden danger of the car and come to the door. Nad was swearing by name, and it caused a lot of trouble. The wealthy GM was angry, but he was ready to teach this young man.
GM used their usual vicious tactics: Hiring detectives to track, monitor, and investigate Nader, trying to grab his “little tail” and shut him up.
Nard’s home address, activity time, family, friends, hobbies, behavior habits, credit history, etc. are all in their possession.
They investigated for three months and found that Nader had no stains or obvious weaknesses. They also pulled out his credit history with a Boston insurance company, but found nothing.
After the investigation was unsuccessful, Nader began to receive various threatening calls: “Brother, why don’t you roll back to Connecticut?”, “Why do you do this? You will lose a lot.”
The harassment at one time made Nad deeply disturbed, and even worried about the safety of himself and his family. Fortunately, Nader followed the old Nader’s childhood to develop a strong quality “bold like iron and bones like a diamond.”
After intimidating to no avail, they started to use the “fairy jump”-the man’s easiest trick.
Nard was shopping while a sexy lady came to him for help and asked Nad to go to her apartment to help move things. When Nader refused, he counter-monitored the woman and found that she almost entered the “Peach-colored Trap.”
Another time, in a pharmacy, a woman invited Nader to her apartment to discuss diplomatic relations. After Nader refused, the other party proposed to discuss Alexander Hamilton (the “Fifteen Years of Wanli” should be discussed).
Obviously, GM didn’t pay a lot of money to ask such senior people as “Di Renjie and Yuan Fang”, they found a group of pig-like teammates. These lame detectives mistakenly regarded a Washington Post reporter as Nader and harassed him many times.
After learning about the cause, the reporter contacted Nader and made public the scandal that GM hired a private detective to investigate Nader.
Public opinion is in an uproar, and things are getting worse. In the end, a committee led by Senator Ribikov asked General Motors President James Roche to come to Congress to explain the atrocious investigation and harassment in person. President Roche acknowledged the series of investigations before many lawmakers and national journalists.
After Congress ’” training “, car safety quickly became the focus of public opinion, the public, car owners, and lawmakers in the United States. Nader and his” Unsafe at Any Speed ”became famous overnight.
Nard, who is a lawyer, understands deeply that if the struggle is not to be overwhelmed by public opinion (slow mouth), it is necessary to legislate the automobile safety issue through legal channels to form a fixed binding mechanism.
So Nader adopted the easy-to-hard approach, and in conjunction with Washington Senator Warren Magnussen, he promoted a law requiring automakers to invest more in car safety.
He found that in 1964, GM only spent $ 1 million on research into the causes of car accidents, and that year the company’s profits were as high as $ 1.7 billion.
The law forced Detroit automakers to invest more in car safety issues.Research-This is the first time in the history of the United States that the government has intervened in an automobile manufacturer’s investment choices.
After the first battle was over, Nader rushed to promote his great plan-legislation for car safety.
Nard convinced Lawrence Scarlis, Iowa’s chief prosecutor, to hold a hearing on car safety issues in January 1966. The hearing aroused national attention and suppressed automakers’ resistance to auto safety regulations.
Two months later, in March 1966, Ribikov held a hearing, at which GM Roche president apologized to Nad, and the understanding of car safety became clearer. After the meeting, the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration was established.
In September 1966, the U.S. Congress passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, the first defective vehicle recall bill.
The core content of the law is “Defective Car Recall”, that is, if a car manufacturer finds that a car placed on the market has a design or manufacturing defect, which may cause safety and environmental issues, it must be reported to the government and an application for recall .
At this point, the first product recall system in human history was born, and Nader was also known as the “father of the automobile recall system.”
Nard also actively popularized car safety knowledge and laws, and the American public quickly accepted Nad’s claim that “there are hidden dangers in car design defects.” With his promotion, a series of regulations and systems on automobile and traffic safety have been introduced.
After the promulgation of various laws, a number of US traffic safety departments were established. In 1970, these departments were merged into the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), whose role is mainly to prevent car accidents and reduce deaths and injuries.
Nard assisted NHTSA in formulating safety standards that we are familiar with today, such as ABS, seat belts, airbags, and automotive fire protection.
In May 1969, the US media criticized European and Japanese automakers for recalling defective car products for repairs, which caused great concern in Japan and triggered a debate on whether the recall and repair of defective cars should be made public. In August, the Japanese Ministry of Transport revised the “Motor Vehicle Model Formulation Rules” and followed the US’s car recall system.
In 1970, the European economy was revived, and the production of automobiles increased to 10 million. Countries have successively implemented automobile recall systems.
The United Kingdom promulgated the automobile recall law “Motor Vehicle Safety Defects Act” after 1979, and began to implement the automobile recall system.
In 1984, France passed the Consumer Law to regulate recalls of French consumer products and product liability matters, and automobile recalls are also one of them.
Germany is the country that implemented the car recall earlier. The German Federal Motor Vehicle Administration (KBA) manages all major German car manufacturers, including Mercedes-Benz.
In 2000, the United States passed new traffic safety regulations. Penalties for manufacturers responsible for concealing defects and related matters were increased from 5 years to 15 years.
In 2004, China began to implement a car recall system, but the number of domestic car recalls is very few each year.
That year, Henry Ford II complained about the new car safety standard: “Irrational, arbitrary, technically unfeasible … if we fail to meet the standards, we have to close the door.”
But by 1977, Ford acknowledged: “Without a federal law, our cars would not have the safety features we already have.”
Nard’s name is now tightly linked to car recalls and car safety. With his own strength, Nader defeated the most powerful industrial organization in the United States and became a fighter in the hearts of American consumers.
On December 12, 1969, Ralph Nader appeared in Time Magazine, and the scenery was endless. Time magazine ridiculed him as “the most difficult consumer” and announced to the world: “Every car owner should thank him.”
“Difficult consumers” is a sign of developed market economies and a driving force for economic progress.
Nard was 31 when he published “No Speed at Any Speed”, one year older than China’s “Mercedes-Benz Activist Girl.” The two are also masters, and they are also threatened by pressure. However, one boarded Time Magazine and the other could only sit on the Mercedes-Benz cover to make headlines. It is worth pondering.
3. How “Nader Warrior” changes the world
Nard is the first whistleblower in car safety.
After achieving success in the field of automotive safety, Nader continues to launch a “Don Quixote-style” attack on consumer infringement and safety. Since then, the whistle has frequently shocked the world.
In 1967, Nader published two articles criticizing meat packaging in the New Republic, and a few months later the Meat Hygiene Act regulating the slaughter industry was passed.
Obviously, Nader has become a “consumer protection god.” In January 1968, Nader was packaged as a knight and appeared on the cover of Newsweek.
Where the whistle of the “knight” blows, it seems that the dawn of consumer safety appears, and there seems to be a bright light on the rule of law.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Nader had become a “phenomenon”, a synonym for progress of the times, and a leader of the trend of consumer sovereignty.
Nard cleverly held up the Whistler banner (the Whistler system originated from the field of food safety), which was widely recognized by the media and progressives, and re-awakened the long-awaited “whistle” movement.
He convened a group of “Nard Warriors”, challenged the big capital, and whistleed the security warning to the public. They promoted the introduction of laws such as the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Law, the Control of Radiation Protection and Health Safety Law, and the Poultry Product Hygiene Law.
At that time, a group of people joined the Nader team and fought alongside him. This team was called the “Nard Warrior”.
At first, there were only seven Nader warriors—all of them were volunteers in colleges. In the small office, the “Nard Warriors” were working frantically, and they released the first heavyweight report like a star.
This report refers to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The report argues that the agency, which was originally responsible for protecting consumer rights, “has been manipulated by agents of large companies and is not affected by government and citizen supervision.”
This is a payroll-like accountability report that blames FTC’s inaction for damaging American consumer rights. This report aroused widespread concern from society and Congress. Congress therefore investigated the FTC, which was severely rectified.
After the success of the first report, more and more people applied to join the Nad Warrior team. In the summer of 1969, with the support of the Foundation, Nader established an organization called the Center for Coping with Legal Studies. The media called it “a hybrid of the political movement command and the college brotherhood.”
Nard recruits dozens of investigators to form multiple “Nard Warrior” teams to address air and water pollution, food safety, large corporate infringement, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), interstate commerce Committee (ICC).
In 1970, “Nader Warrior” published a 292-page report on food and medicine-“Chemical Dinner”.
This is a very professional report by 17