Thoughts on Bailing Out DetroitBy William Irwin Thompson
Since the bailout of Wall Street did not seem to go as planned by Congress, and the banks ended up hoarding the money instead of re-animating the credit system, we should think twice before bailing out the incompetent management of Detroit. New York Times columnist David Brooks is right when he says we should allow the Schumpeterian winds of creative destruction to do their work, let the two or three corporations declare bankruptcy, and allow new forces to buy up their assets and retool the factories and workshops for green vehicles, wind mills, solar collectors, and the return of suburban trains and urban street cars to our over-stretched cities. Small cities like Zurich--where I have lived-- with its Swiss punctual system of trains, trolleys, and streetcars, and not L.A.--where I have also lived--are the wave of the future.
Feeling Schumpeter's chill wind at its back, Japan invested in innovation in automotive engineering and has given us the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic. GM ignored the oil crisis of the 70's, and inspired by Papa Bush and his first Gulf War, has given us the Hummer, the Escalade, and the Yukon. Giving GM executives more money will not improve their thinking or imagination. Like the Republican party handlers of a corporate mind-set who convinced McCain to abandon his reputation for straight talk to adopt an advertising campaign based on Joe the Plumber and attacks ads smearing centrist Obama as a terrorist, or even worse, a socialist, these General Motors executives will use the money for advertising their old products as Green and nature-loving. Republicans feel that America should be a corporate oligarchy and that the helots can be made to believe what they want them to through the power of media and advertising: witness, Fox News. The prosecution rests its case.
But this year's election proved that even American stupidity has its limits and that we will not always buy frozen shit-on-a-stick if it is labeled an organic Fudgecicle. Joe the Plumber may have gotten a book deal by his pretending to be something other than a paid plant in the crowd, but by the time his book comes out, it may be as wilted as last month's arugula at Whole Foods.
The people we should bailout are the white and blue color workers who are out of work because of management's incompetence. We should provide them with the funds to go to community colleges and make up for the bad education they had in high school to retool themselves as the new workers for a knowledge economy.
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