It is almost as if the people writing for the TV Club have no understanding of what The Wire is really about. The Wire has never been about Capitalism. It has always been about institutional breakdown in Baltimore. It is about the breakdown of schools, police, childrens services, political figures and this season the media.

Blaming Capitalism for the breakdown of Baltimore is liberal nonsense. What Baltimore needs is less of the government that has been destroying the city since the 1960s and more Capitalism. Yikes, these folks are really botching the TV Club this year.

I hate to be in the position of defending these guys, but on this point you are wrong. Simon says in pretty much every interview he does that the show is about capitalism, and how individuals are "worth less" every day as institutions are forced to devalue them to survive in the capitalist economy (or something).

You can disagree (obviously you do) and still appreciate the show--that's part of it's strength, and demonstrates how ultimately the show ISN'T as preachy as it sometimes feels, but is actually rich and complex and open to interpretation.

But this is SIMON'S view of his work, so you're wrong to argue that Goldberg and Plotz are somehow missing the point.

Shibbo is correct on this, at least for the most part. In many interviews, episode commentaries, etc, Simon has stated that "unrestrained" capitalism has helped lead the institutions portrayed in The Wire to their present state. However, do not confuse this opinion with an endorsement for socialism or communism. In Simon's view, capitalism is a viable economic strategy to a certain degree; it is when the "winner-takes-all" mentality seeps into every aspect of society that it becomes insidious. America has been capitalist since its inception; however, the death of the city as portrayed in the show is a fairly recent development (taking place over the last 50 years or so). It is this death that Simon takes issue with, and he feels that raw capitalism without a social contract has led to it.

I just have to respectfully disagree.

I've never once in a single interview of Simon heard him blame Capitalism for the problems in Baltimore. Maybe winner take all, but never once Capitalism. Hell, Socialism can be winner take all. The winner in Socialism gets to decide what everyone does, wears and sees.

From the horse's mouth:

"You are not looking at a Marxist up here, but you are looking at somebody who doesn’t believe that Capitalism [can work] absent a social framework that accepts that it is relatively easy to marginalize more and more people in this economy."

This quote came from this article:

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Do a Google search for "David Simon capitalism" and you will find quite a bit more.

This from the New Yorker profile of Simon: "“The Wire,” Simon often says, is a show about how contemporary American society—and, particularly, “raw, unencumbered capitalism”—devalues human beings. He told me, “Every single moment on the planet, from here on out, human beings are worth less.."

But Rhayader is right to point out that he's referring to "raw, unencumbered capitalism." This from a Simon interview with David Mills, posted at undercoverblackman: "I’m a social democrat. I believe in capitalism as the only viable motivating force to create wealth. But I believe that there have to be certain social frameworks that allow for a distribution of a share of that wealth throughout the classes. …"

I like your point although it looks like some other viewers have you on whether or not Simon partially blames capitalism. So, I think the more accurate point is that Simon's blaming of capitalism is wrong-headed. Almost all the institutions he is indicting (city government, the police, the schools, etc) are not capitalist institutions. They are structures built of central, bureaucratic power where customers do not vote with their money on whether service is good or not. And, they all end up resulting in denigration of the individual and, at times, abuse of the individual at the whim of people who happen to hold powerful positions in the bureaucracy not because of meritorious service to customers but because of political alliances. So, while Simon may intend to indict capitalism, the whole show is actually indicting the things that free market libertarians oppose. Simon is deconstructing himself...accidentally.

This may also explain why the newsroom stuff seems so cliched. The Baltimore Sun is actually a business that is supposed to make money. Yet, Simon is unable to see the management there as human beings trying to figure out how to do that. He seems to assume that the paper should just go on doing whatever he thinks is right whether it makes money or not and that anyone who disagrees is some sort of banally evil person.

I think the problem is that Simon doesn't really buy into capitalism.

Beautiful discourse...I found myself thinking similarly...Simon knows all the down and dirty but isn't nearly as comfortable or as empathetic when it comes to one of the real common sense solutions to all this profanity. He joins it rather than uplifting it. Sure, there are "capitalistic pigs" in a like-minded society but Simon's world is so muddied he fails to see the clarity that when it's done right it can provide wide solutions for many. His notion seems upside down and ironic: those whose plights he laments as victims are really formless like children and those he deems diabolical have, many times, the best of intentions for all, not just themselves.

Simon is not a rabid anti-capitalist; in fact, he considers it to be the only real viable, fair economic strategy. However, he has said many times that he laments the fashion in which a capitalist economy can marginalize a significant portion of a city's population. Put quite simply, the majority of West Baltimore (or any other low-income area) is not needed to keep the economic engine running. The ghettos could disappear tomorrow, and our economy would feel very little impact.

This leads Simon to say what we have often heard him say, which is that in today's culture, people are worth less and less every day. He feels that within a purely capitalist framework, if a person is not deemed by others to be necessary for making money, that person is cast aside and forgotten. Once this happens to entire classes and neighborhoods, things get bad very quickly. Simon feels that a capitalist economy should work within a social framework that understands the tendency of the economy to marginalize certain people, and in turn endeavors to take care of those individuals who have been turned away.

You describe a valid feeling that I believe many people have. I try to look at it differently. I think that these days people are valued the most they have ever been valued. As recently as 150 years ago, people were slaves. As recently as 250 years ago, only the aristocracy had comfortable lives and most people died young and anonymous. Today, the percentage of people in the West who are truly marginalized is a very small percentage. Sad that it is so but it is real progress. Most people in industrialized societies live very comfortable lives where they make most of the decisions about their own situations. Back to my original point, the institutions that marginalize people through reducing their choice tend to be bureaucratic, centralized institutions not decentralized capitalist institutions.

Good point; in terms of percentage of the US population, the people who are marginalized to such a large extent make up a very small portion of our world. However, in cities like Baltimore --or Detroit, Philly, Chicago, etc-- those who have not been left behind (the taxpayers) are moving out. As a result, we have entire neighborhoods (and, more and more, entire cities) filled with people who have no place in the modern economy. This leads to the "death of the American city" that Simon so laments.

Also, your point about the bureaucratic institutions playing a large part in this failure is very true. Anybody who watched The Wire knows that Simon does not look very kindly upon these monolithic, bureaucratic organizations. However, I think he views a raw capitalist society as the main reason why people have to turn to these institutions in the first place. Like I posted earlier, if all of West Baltimore were to disappear, the economy would feel little to no impact. These people are simply not necessary to keep things going for the rest of us. Since nothing is produced in the US anymore (a result of the capitalist goal of increasing profit margins), they cannot work as laborers in factories or on docks. Their parents and grandparents had those types of jobs available, and so were important members of the economy. This is no longer true.

I think that in Simon's mind, there are two ways of dealing with this problem: the first is to simply let them fall by the wayside, and to allow their communities to be overrun by the only viable economic enterprise left, the drug trade (this is the purely capitalist solution: survival of the fittest). The other option is to help these marginalized people out; to educate them, to provide jobs for them, to keep them healthy. This has been attempted hundreds of different ways, at the cost of billions of dollars, and has never really worked. However, in Simon's eyes, continuing to try to make it work is the more noble path than just allowing them to drop out of society. This is the "social framework" within which he believes capitalism should be working.

It is always interesting to be reminded how people can see the same event and have so many different interpretations.

In my view, Mr. Simon is trying to point out that a newspaper is not a regular business and its primary role is not to make money but provide valuable and complex information about our society. The moment information (or news or however you want to refer to it) becomes a product it starts being governed by economic forces. The results and consequences of such approach is what I see being depicted in The Wire. Information is not just a product that is there to be bought and sold. Only in the eyes of raw and unencumbered capitalism can information and can opener be seen as equal.

Also, I never go the impression that Mr. Simon is saying that newspaper should not make money at all; he is just pointing at, yet another, segment of our society that needs close examination and change.

As a side note: I always thought that Marlo was one the best and most obvious symbols of Darwinian capitalism ever created.

indeed

First, to address your side point: yes, Marlo is a shining example of pure social and economic Darwinism.

As far as your comments about capitalism's effect on newspapers, I agree with those as well. However, it is important to keep in mind that his distaste for raw capitalism extends far beyond the newsroom. In the show's universe -- and in Simon's mind, I think -- cutthroat capitalism is the driving force behind the formation of all of these institutions (the drug game, the modern police state, the policital culture, etc). In fact, most of the quotes attributed to Simon in this thread were responses or statements regarding previous seasons, in which the newspaper obviously did not play a role.

Sorry for the slow response...I was traveling. I see your point about the effects of marginalizing parts of the city. I think we have a bit of a chicken and egg kind of problem here. I am definitely on the side of thinking that the bureaucratic institutions are the ones that cause the marginalizing by using institutional power to benefit some individuals over others. For example, drug users & dealers are only criminals because the political process says that alcohol is OK while other intoxicants are not. In a true free market, any individual with the desire can try to succeed. As we see in almost all lobbying of the government, the purpose of lobbying is to create a bias in the law to favor one party over another. I perceive that your point (and your interpretation of Simon's view) is the opposite: capitalism marginalizes people and the government needs to step in to rebalance things. The good news is that we do agree that there is a problem and that people should not be marginalized. As a free advertisement for a good charity, check out trickleup.org...or, it's micro-loan cousin, kiva.org. Those are places where I try to backup my belief in free enterprise with my own money.

To piggyback on a comment I made in another response to Rhayader that the problem is not caoitalism but the ansence of capitalsim, there is another way to view Marlo. He is a victim of bureaucratic insitutions that have provided him little legitimate means to exercise his entrepeneurial skills. Marlo is an ambitious guy with the intelligence to back-up his goals. Now, given his opportunities, he is stuck in a world where he is not able to compete in a market sense through better quality, customer service, or price. He can really only compete by overthrowing and destroying his competitors. If you assume that the drug trade was legal and could be pursued through normal competitive means, Marlo would have simply offered more money to the Greek to get the package and pushed Prop Joe out that way..no violence. In fact, Marlo tried this at first. It was only after being turned down that Marlo opted for the more aggressive plan of making it clear to the Greek that insurance was required and then of course making the insurance absolutely necessary by killing Joe.

Yes, I know I'm exaggerating a bit but I think people jump too easy to the idea that people trading freely with each is a problem when most of the power imbalances occur in the economy because non-market institutions intervene to make markets for their political allies.