ONCE the largest automobile manufacturer in the world, General Motors (GM) has fallen from its once powerful pinnacle of employing 400,000 Americans and thousands of others worldwide, filed bankruptcy yesterday, marking an end to an era of American manufacturing might. It is easy to regard GM with a lot of cynicism as, indeed, this industrial giant is, by and large, almost solely responsible for its own economic situation. For years, GM was a major proponent of the “bigger is better” school of thinking that was a product of US domination of the post-World War II world. Even as gas prices in the US rose and the oil crisis of the 1970s made it clear that the American love for big cars would have to undergo changes, GM continued to make gas-guzzling automobiles for a public that began to favor the more fuel-efficient vehicles marketed by Japanese manufacturers, especially Toyota and Honda. Even as gas prices skyrocketed in recent times, GM pushed low-gas-mileage SUVs on a public that was beginning to see the writing on the wall. Times were changing but GM blindly refused to change with them. GM was also up against a major labor union, the United Auto Workers (UAW), that also blindly crusaded for every last penny that it could wrench out of the company for its workers. Even when it was clear that it was contributing to a bleeding bottom line, the UAW refused to consider serious concessions to management. GM's old business model is not viable in the world that we live in today. It smacks of an American hubris that, given the current state of the world, cannot be supported. GM, the company, is not gone, however. It will undergo reorganization and should emerge from bankruptcy in a few months, leaner and essentially nationalized, with the US government holding 60 percent of the company's equity. The GM that was an international powerhouse is gone, quite probably forever. It is just one more sign of a truly new world order. __
