ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The broad picture of modern market systems that has been given in this book is far from what is conveyed in mainstream neoclassical economics. There, the market system is viewed as a kind of congenial anarchy, a harmonious competition among equals. The power structure required for such a hypothetical perfect capitalist market system is none other than that which undergirds the institution of private property itself: It rests upon the coercive power of the state and the value power that is effective in the society's cultural institutions. In principle then, capitalist market systems constitute societies that are just as hierarchical as those based on other economic systems, for example, Soviet-style central planning, feudalism, and ancient slave-based systems. Critics of capitalist market systems are often accused of lacking "constructive alternatives".
