This essay is concerned with capitalism as it may exist in the future. Heilbroner writes that it is obvious enough that not only American society but all societies award to certain groups or classes disproportionate shares of wealth, power and prestige and that the core institutions of privilege in capitalism are the right to reap private benefit from the use of the means of production and the right to utilize the dynamic forces of the marketplace for private enrichment. In other words, the operation of capitalism as a functional system results in a structure of wealth and income characteristic of capitalism as a system of privilege.
