The world will not end when General Motors Corporation breathes its last as the once great, preeminent, American capitalist conglomerate. Like a dying grandparent, we all know it is coming, many wishing it would simply all be over, the dying worse than the death. Tears will be shed, hands will be wrung, and wails will be sent towards the unforgiving heavens. The undertakers will return to their daily toil, and the rest of us will shuffle back towards the stark reality of a new world, heads bowed low and sullen to the sudden shock of national mortality.
Thousands will lose their jobs of course. Grimy autoworkers, skilled at nothing more than the simple complexity of assembly. Cubicle dwellers trained at passing paper in the paperless age. Managers, with no control over anything at all. Ten thousand Vice Presidents of nothing. All will be released from the protective cocoon of capitalism, dumped on the streets after a lifetime as the backbone of the American Dream. Many more will continue as before — assembling, passing, and managing.
The real damage done with the death of "The General" will be much deeper than the freedom of pay slaves or the decomposition of rotting industrial bodies. The death of GM — marked solemnly by judges stamps and law clerks endless filings — will be a tipping point reached and crested, with nothing but a yawning chasm waiting for us all. The death of confidence in capitalism and American democracy is our real reward for a lifetime wasted on nothing more than ideology.
The system does not work. Not just broken, but all wrong from the get go. Building a civilization against the laws of economic nature, no matter how hard we have all tried to justify it, was and is now proved to be, lunacy. And nothing symbolized the onward march of idiocy more than the American automobile. From urban sprawl to factory skylines, to big box parking lots and angry, hostile unions, NASCAR, James Dean, and holiday gridlock and mortality. The automobile is America. Was America. Worn with pride for generations, the badges of America — Chevy, Camaro, and Cadillac — all tarnished and turned to buttons on a mothballed coat from a different age.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Clavos
You sound like Engine Charlie Wilson, who told the Senate Armed Services Committee, during hearings to confirm him as Eisenhower's Secretary of Defense, "...for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa."
Pure hyperbole -- on both Wilson's and your parts.I doubt that the demise of GM
2 - roger nowosielski
By the way, have just seen the movie, "Charlie Wilson's War." A must-see for everyone.
3 - roger nowosielski
I fail to see what kind of newer, brighter future is being envisaged instead. The prospects look pretty grim to me. But I suppose we should be cheering now.
4 - Wingnut
"laws of economic nature"?
Hmmm, no other living things on the entire planet... use economies/ownership. Is there such a thing as economic nature?
I wonder how many were made rich via GM/GMAC/RFC over the years. Just like capitalism itself, I bet the tip of the GM hierarchy will stay "heads in the clouds", no matter what "weight of the world" happens upon the backs of those below.
5 - roger nowosielski
Kind of nebulous phrase, if you ask me.
6 - Dave Nalle
This is all very poetic and all, but you left out the part about GM making utterly crappy cars and the fact that it should have been driven out of business 20 years ago.
DAve
7 - roger nowosielski
But you're forgetting the Golden Era, Dave. And I liked James Dean, didn't you?
8 - Clavos
Golden, shmolden. Fords were always better cars, even when they were crappy.
9 - roger nowosielski
GM or Ford, who cares? Before VWs showed up, American cars were a symbol.
10 - Clavos
I drive an american car, but not symbolically -- they're cheaper.
11 - handyguy
GM apparently makes at least one rather good car now, the Malibu, which even comes in a hybrid version. Maybe too late.
Back in the 70s, my high school biology teacher told us that Ford stood for "fix or repair daily." Not sure what that had to do with biology.
I have relatives who will still only drive GM vehicles, just like they will only go to a Methodist church or will only root for the Yankees [or in more recent decades, the Braves]. This in spite of some really dreadful lemons they have ended up with.
12 - roger nowosielski
I find it rather ironic that some of the conservative voices here celebrate the demise of capitalism and pick on poor GM as though it encapsulated the essence of all the evils. Is it because it makes such an easy and convenient target? And how are you're going to expect a rebirth, the raising from the ashes, if you're so down on American companies - unless you don't care about it anymore and opt for global corporations instead?
13 - handyguy
I bet no cheap American car is as good as the cheap Honda Fit.
I also have fond memories of a Chevy Celebrity I drove in the 80s before it got totaled by the contents of a gravel truck, which came flying through the air at me [the gravel, not the truck] from the other side of the interstate.
But that's another story.
14 - roger nowosielski
There was a time though, once, when the symbol meant something.
15 - handyguy
Conservatives are Darwinists, Roger. If you can't cut it, die and make room for the winners, that's their motto.
16 - roger nowosielski
So you're saying that they're willing to sell the country in the process for the sake of the general principle?
17 - handyguy
In the course of a debate on the Internet, at least, yes. I'm not sure they're all really that mean-spirited in real life.
18 - Cindy
...no other living things on the entire planet... use economies/ownership. Is there such a thing as economic nature?
Excellent.
19 - roger nowosielski
No wonder the author things we belong more properly in the cave.
20 - roger nowosielski
Handy,
Is it because talk is cheap. Let me tell you, I wouldn't trust anyone one like that as far as I could throw them. To be so deprived of all sentiments? That's almost fucking inhuman.
I'd never cross my mind that I would have to stand here and try to defend America against those guys.
What an irony!
21 - roger nowosielski
Handy,
I really don't understand the following statement:
"Building a civilization against the laws of economic nature, no matter how hard we have all tried to justify it, was and is now proved to be, lunacy."
Do you have a clue?
22 - Jeff
It's interesting to note that the same people who think companies like GM have an obligation to provide the best pay and benefits to their employees are also the same people who will be happy when GM is gone. Will you also think that justice has been served when the pensions of thousands of retired GM employees become bankrupt?
23 - STM
Ford and Holden (GM) are still the two biggest-selling car brands Down Under, behind Toyota.
While Toyota is built here, the big-selling Holdens and Fords are designed here and are different from anything you'll see in the US, although both companies also bring in designs from Europe like the Holden Astra and the new Ford Focus (no American ones though, apart from a couple of big V8 trucks).
Hopefully, GM can weather this storm and emerge stronger. Otherwise, and Americans might not realise this, there will be job losses not just in America but in Australia (at Holden), in the UK (at Vauxhall), and in Germany (Opel).
It's likely the Australian Govt will prop up Holden, which is an autonomous arm of GM, has a very large export market and brings in a lot of export dollars on top of big local sales - but if the whole GM thing goes belly up in the states, it will be bad news indeed.
It begs the question: Would I buy a Holden or a Ford in Australia?
Yes, I would - they are both turning out some quality vehicles that have big points of difference from those designed and made by their parent companies in the US, and the punters agree and continue to vote strongly by parting with their hard-earned.
The latest Holden Commodore (now exported to the US as a Pontiac G8) and the new Ford Falcon are absolute corkers of cars.
Not all of GM's or Ford's products are crap, especially if you like big, thumping rear-wheel drive Aussie muscle cars (I know I do!).
Big problem in the US is the volume of designs. Some are great, but others haven't been so well thought out. Perhaps they should have stuck to a few good ones and saved a few bob in the process.
24 - roger nowosielski
I think it goes beyond that, Jeff. What you indicated is a very simple contradiction, if at all. Don't forget that the conservatives don't give a damn about the American worker. But what really gets me - they don't give a damn about American business as well. It could as well be Chinese or Russian for all they care.
25 - roger nowosielski
But your point of view here, Stan the Man, is that of a consumer. I'm more concerned with what I think is a larger issue - trying to restore the integrity of American corporations.