I believe, there were always destructiveness within every profession, at any time of human existence. Capitalism boosts that nowadays, yes, but this quote seems to implicate there are no more people alive and organizations existing that do important thoughts and activities to resist this likely trend. So the only possibility is to face that, give up, and be a observer for the rest of your life.

Which is not true! The quote may be out of context, but as presented, it is nothing more than also destructiveness. Because it is a shitty demotivating generalization which is not very clever, if Chris Hedges point is really to warn about the (maybe future) state of society and want to invite people to take part in the resistance.