Amid all the financial chaos of our age, the domestic auto industry will get the $50 billion in federal loan guarantees it has been seeking, to finance more rapid development of fuel-efficient vehicles. The U.S. House of Representatives approved the first $25 billion earlier this week, and the other half is expected to come through next year. (There’s a fairly even-handed examination of it all here.)

Some of us just can’t get used to the idea of the federal government handing money to private enterprises, whether or not those enterprises can be expected to manage it well. “It’s the principle,” we like to reiterate.

But, the case of the auto industry is said by some to be more crucial to our economic well-being than others, because of its role as an employer, a driver of economic activity, and a source of technological development. It may be no coincidence that GM and Chrysler this week made official their plans to build new engine plants.

Proponents of the auto-industry support in this case point to the federal government’s $1.5-billion “bailout” of Chrysler Corp. in 1980, and hasten to declare that to have been a good investment.

But, I’m less convinced that the 1980 bailout was wise. Chrysler stumbled along until its fortunes were revived by the minivan, a development that automotive “experts” and environmentalists now decry as bad for the domestic industry because it delayed their acceptance of new designs. And, Chrysler never achieved more than a third ranking in the domestic market, and it sold itself to Daimler in 1998. Now, that sale is undone, and Chrysler and the rest are back in line for federal assistance. Who’s to say where all this would stand if the federal government had just denied Chrysler in 1980?

That was then, this is now. And now, the money to be offered is considerably more than Chrysler got in 1980. (Adjusted for inflation, Chrysler’s 1980 bailout would be worth about $4 billion now.)

Whatever justification there may be for these loan guarantees, there is a new question worth asking: will it matter in the context of the larger financial mess we’re growing to understand?  Automakers need auto buyers, and buyers need to be able to finance purchases of new cars, frequently. Domestic automakers have been coming to terms with their internal problems; we can only wonder what will help them overcome the problem of overtaxed, under-capitalized, malaise-ridden customers.

Update Sept. 30: Here's more detail that will add to the last sentence of the original post.