What's wrong with this picture?

The GM deal has left a lot of us scratching our heads in wonder at the power of the auto industry to garner billions in government support while the rest of us are stuck mostly going it alone, mano-a-mano with the recession.

But is it possible that the GM bail-out is a case of real-life experience that has gone so far off the rails that it's actually nudging us toward an entirely new paradigm?

Capitalism has most certainly driven itself way beyond its own comfort zone. There is no map yet for the road ahead.

In 2004 we made a documentary called The Take about Argentina's movement of worker-run businesses. In the wake of the country's dramatic economic collapse in 2001, thousands of workers walked into their shuttered factories and put them back into production as worker cooperatives. Abandoned by bosses and politicians, they regained unpaid wages and severance while reclaiming their jobs.

As we toured Europe and North America with the film, every Q&A ended up with the question, That's all very well in Argentina, but could that ever happen here?

The high drama in the auto sector keeps speeding along on a mind-bending course.

Due to just-announced concessions from U.S. banks and bond-holders, it appears at press time that both Chrysler and GM will avert bankruptcy though radically reduced job and projected sales numbers, and U.S. auto workers will be their new controlling shareholders.

Chrysler could be 55 per cent worker-owned and GM 39 per cent. That's a major milestone.

While the Canadian government watches closely and is careful not to rule out taking equity in GM itself, many voices are predicting only looming failure for companies moving so beyond the pale of private enterprise.