David Simon described the problem very clearly: That may be the ultimate tragedy of capitalism in our time, that it has achieved its dominance without

David Simon described the problem very clearly: That may be the ultimate tragedy of capitalism in our time, that it has achieved its dominance without regard to a social compact, without being connected to any other metric for human progress. [...] Capitalism stomped the hell out of Marxism [...] but the great irony of it is that the only thing that actually works is not ideological, it is impure, has elements of both arguments and never actually achieves any kind of partisan or philosophical perfection. It's pragmatic, it includes the best aspects of socialistic thought and of free-market capitalism and it works because we don't let it work entirely. [...] Labour doesn't get to win all its arguments, capital doesn't get to. But it's in the tension, it's in the actual fight between the two, that capitalism actually becomes functional, that it becomes something that every stratum in society has a stake in, that they all share. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/david-simon-capitalism-marx-two-americas-wire http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/david-simon-cap... (the original talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNttT7hDKsk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNttT7hDKsk )