You may think it's right or wrong, wise or foolish, fair or unfair, but the federal government's decision to take over General Motors is certainly historic. It's also anti-historic, in the most literal sense: it taunts history.

General Motors is a fixture of North American manufacturing, a foundation on which are built thousands of production plants (mills, foundries, forges, fabricators, and processors.) It's also a pattern for other automakers, and a template for dozens of other industries, like home appliances, aerospace systems, industrial equipment, and machine tools — almost anything assembled from engineered and manufactured parts. We see ourselves in GM; it embodies what we understand about who we are and what we do.

GM is a part of our national and social history, but it's much harder to conclude that it's part of our future.

For the past several years, to an increasingly vocal number of people, the scale and influence of GM and other large manufacturers has not been enough: they want security. They want permanence.

This opposition to risk is part of human nature, but it's inimical to progress. Neither GM nor any business can survive on stability. It needs dynamism. As an organization, it must expand and withdraw, to grow and develop. Its ups and downs over the past eight decades are what we hail as its legacy, but getting out of step with progress won't achieve much of anything.

The conflict between human nature and the nature of business forced GM to submit to a takeover. In a period of financial distress, the people who depend on GM retreated from facts and imposed their will on those who have the power to restore to them the security they crave. These workers, retirees, and others, have had enough dynamism. They want certainty.

They can be confident that the federal overseers will keep GM solvent and mostly intact. But, whether GM (or any company) has a viable future is not a matter to be determined by federal authorities. Car buyers will determine if this “rescue” succeeds, and the feds have already lengthened GM's odds of success by choosing a favorite among all the distressed interests. The rest of us, the non-favorites, will carry on — forever mistrusting those who have been spared this moment in history.

Note, too, how the voices supporting the federal takeover fail to understand how the outcome is at odds with their hopes. Before too long, they'll be behind the times. GM may be stable, now, but the rest of the world is not. GM is already out of touch with the rest of us.

Those of us who have not been secured by federal intervention will look for other opportunities to grow and prosper. Spurned auto dealers will seek new franchises. Component manufacturers will develop new customer relationships, among new automakers and in new industries. Fabricators and system suppliers will develop new capabilities.

There is no rescue plan for us. We have no one to guarantee our incomes, to fulfill the promises we've made, to underwrite our ventures, nor to pay for our mistakes. We cannot take a break from this moment in time, so we'll stay alert and available for our next chance.

One way or another, we'll find the way forward. Laws or regulations will not dictate our advances. We won't be satisfied with past strategies, and we won't be restrained by present assumptions. Our successes, when they happen, will be the result of our own trials and errors. They will be the hard-won tributes of individuals mindful of the risks we're taking, and well aware of our place in history.