It would be great if the federal government never had to help out a private company again. But all that talk about “socialism” a couple of years ago seems off-target when you consider the latest news from General Motors Co.

America’s taxpayers found themselves bailing out GM, whether they wanted to or not. Many wondered why we were saving certain large companies and letting small companies flounder.

The answer: “More bang for the buck.”

We placed a lot of bucks on the table, but it wasn’t a bad wager. GM pulled back from the brink of disaster, starting looking stronger, and now says that it will invest $2 billion in 17 U.S. auto plants and expects the investment to save or create 4,000 jobs.

One certainly can quibble about the “save or create” terminology. The definition of a “saved” job can be a slippery thing. Investment in manufacturing, however, is exactly the kind of progress we need on the employment front.

From construction of the plants to supporting vendors to building cars, the country will gain jobs.

Simply buying jobs might sound like a fool’s errand, but remember that more jobs also means more people paying income taxes and buying goods, and fewer people drawing unemployment benefits. We won’t try to quantify the value of a contented populace as compared with a disgruntled one, but that counts, too.

As the economic recovery continues to be disappointingly slow, criticism of the government continues to grow. Critics slam the administration for not doing more to create jobs. Most of these critics seem to want lower corporate tax rates rather than active measures. They want government out of the way.

But when the government does act, and the results do seem worthwhile, that would seem to qualify government intervention as a useful weapon in the arsenal. There’s more than one way to keep a country running, and none of them should be excluded in an emergency.