Bourgois makes an intersting statement when he claims that: “the logistics of selling crack are not

dramatically different from those of any other risky private sector retail enterprise.” In other words, he
is suggesting that a drug business is not that different from a risky traditional business. While his claim
was particularly shocking to me at first, after reading the rest of his piece and thinking about his claim in
the context of The Wire, it definitely makes more sense. What does this say about of economic system
that these two industries are run in such similar ways?