Marxist Analyst: The Wire Season 3 episode 11 “Middle Grounds”

Marxist Analyst: The Wire Season 3 episode 11 “Middle Grounds”

The television series The Wire, focuses on the “War on Drugs” that takes place in Baltimore. The consistent characters throughout the season are police, drug dealers,politicians and a drug user. The show explores capitalism from every aspect, whether legal or illegal they each play a part in the system.  My analysis is about how the drug dealer Stringer Bell plays his part in the depiction of the “American Dream” from a perspective of an ambitious person that grew up in West Baltimore. The episode “Middle Grounds” is when the character comes to the realization of the difference between bourgeoisie and proletariat.

  Stringer Bell is second-in-command to the drug gang known as “The Barksdales”. Since the first season the audience can see that Stringer is different from Avon. Avon is more of the gang banger that wants to run streets, whereas Stringer desires to expand as a businessman. While Avon is imprisoned in the first season we see more of Stringer pursuing his his endeavor. He regularly attends business classes at a community college.Iit is suggested that the education he is learning is what he applies when he is leader. His desire to be a part of corporate America is first displayed when he wants a copy store that is used for money laundering to be an actual business. Stringer teaches store’s decoy workers about customer service and consumerism. His drive did not stop there as he then begins to hold routine gatherings that resemble a board meeting. He goes from making just money to making capital, even going as far as taking a lesson from WorldCom and applying it to the drug game. As the Barksdale were losing drug profits due to low quality product. Stringer changes the names of the drugs that The Barksdales sell, in addition to making fake competition between the crews within the neighborhood.

 Stringers economics would prove flawed as users would eventually catch on. Leaving Stringer to make a deal with the kingpin known as Proposition Joe. Joe's territory is the Eastside of Baltimore, a a longtime rival area not only to the Barksdales but with other westside gangs as well. Joe proposes that he gives Stringer his drug connection if he would agree to let Joe's crew part of his territory. Stringer feels that it's worth the money and agrees.

   In the third season, Avon Barksdale the leader of the gang is released from prison. Shortly after his release, Avon finds that not only the changes the city has made, but the way the gang is ran under Bell in his absence. The project buildings that the Barksdale controlled were demolished leaving the gang to find new locations. This would be the main cause of the competition, while at the same time Stringer has chosen to work with corrupt state senator Clay Davis in starting a real estate company.

 Clay Davis would prove he is more of a capitalist  with the protection of his government power from the beginning. Davis would have Stringer invest more and more money In a fake endeavor. Stringer would find this out when he spoke to his attorney,  but the damage had already been done. Stringer, a person who has a history of making profit from unethical methods, has become a victim of the higher class doing the same to him. Avon once told Stringer, that the difference between each other is that “I bleed red, you bleed green.”

 Stringer's proletariat part in a capitalist system is somewhat countered by another of the show's main characters;a heroin user name Bubbles. This season Bubbles begins to scavenge for white t-shirts that drug dealers would throw away after one use. Realizing that the shirts are still in good shape. He begins to collect them and sell them at a cheaper price. Bubbles, usually depicted as someone struggling by in life, begins to display a show of glee. Stringer's fall from grace is not only a representation of the reality of the proletariat. Bubbles, someone who through out the show has nothing, but later has something, ends up the happiest of all.

Stringer wants to have Clay Davis killed, but Avon steps in