As far as things stay the same, the workers in the auto industry and its suppliers will suffer more than than they would have had the government provided a bailout, inspite of the fact the company bosses would have squandered, or outright stolen, most of the money. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that I am ambivalent about the matter, although at first I was bigoted in my opposition to the bailout (as I unfortunately made clear to one of my facebook comrades, a potential causality if this decision, in comments I've since lived to regret). However, while it seems the livelihoods of the proletariat depend on the survival of capitalism, it is the case that capitalism's survival is not desirable nor tenable. Why it is not desirably is well know. On the other hand, nonsuperficial discussion of why is untenable is generally avoided, even by Marxists (probably since most live comfortably with the present arrangement). Of course there are a number of reasons, and most will have to be left for another day, but two facts are evident, at least in this case:
a) The auto industry will be in perpetual need of bailouts, like a heroin addict that needs more and more smack to get high but will die without it. Eventually the public will get fed up of this, even if they eventually come around on this occasion.
b) The manufacture of automobiles and the products themselves are destructive to the environment, perhaps even terminally so.
The question, then, is where does this leave organized labor? At present stuck in de facto defense of a moribund economic arrangement. The solution, it seems to me, is a switch from trade unions to generalized--i.e. trade-independent--unions and for the objective of these new unions to be to protect the worker, so long as capitalism remains, from exploitation by any employer* while at the same time pushing for what in the old days would have been called a socialist economy. Not only would this solve, I think, the present problem of unions effectively siding with reaction against broader economic progress but that it would ultimately strengthen public offensive force in all the battles it faces against power in its various guises.
*This implies a change in labor laws. But this change will be implemented if the force of the public is behind it. Besides, in practice the transition to general unions may, probably will, be gradual--union members in their spare time meeting with members of other unions and with nonunion members of the public sharing ideas and gradually forming an organized movement-as always.
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