David Simon on The End of American Empire

"I expected a lot more of the future 20 years ago," David Simon, a former police reporter and writer/producer of The Wire, delivering a speech at Loyola College titled, "The End of the American Empire." Maybe a more accurate title might be, "The Rise of American Oligarchy and the Devaluation of Human Life." Can capitalism cure what capitalism causes? Is unbridled capitalism compatible with a working democracy in which all persons are equal, though some are destitute? We all have answers, identical, generally, to the soundbites repeated endlessly from the talk show pundits and think thank thinkers, the framers of our current common sense. But when you think, what do you think? If the system is about to crash, how do we reboot it? Philanthropy, new corporate structures, a more robust capital market for social good, spiritual and ethical revival, and a more acute political consciousness (not of parties turned against one another, but of our shared fate and responsibility)?