THE LIMITS OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM

This brief book might be described as a contest between a luminous mentality and the murkiest subject. The battle may not have been quite conclusive, merely a preliminary skirmish perhaps, but there is little doubt over who came away from it the victor. Mr. Heilbroner looks at the future, and the possibilities he raises are both novel and fundamental; to do a finely turned argument the violence of severe abridgment, he sees science (not Marxism) as having the same relationship to capitalism as capitalism itself had to feudalism: in the end it will destroy and replace its ""host"" as a social system in its own right. Meanwhile, however, his eye misses very little that is of use to an understanding of the current phenomenon usually referred to here as ""business""-- the author's preferred term for capitalism in ""its daily operation."" One expects, from a slim volume like this one, an introduction to the topic at best; here, instead, we have an essay that strips it to its most fundamental characteristics. The chapters were developed as separate lectures but have retained their sharpness and simplicity.