How Does Robert Heilbroner Define Capitalism

Robert Heilbroner, in his book called The Drive of Capital, heavily concerns and defines capitalism as a unique economic arrangement with critical tendencies that are described to the core for a better understanding of avoiding social catastrophe and rather improving and managing the social needs of the society. Helibroner’s focus is to describe capitalism in the most elaborate way and discusses issues that many economic theorists might have avoided to answer throughout history. If one would type in the key word capitalism in any search engine it will define it as an act of ownership by private companies rather than the state for profit. In other words, the term capitalism has been narrowed down to a basic phenomenon of a “business term” or

Heilbroner states, “Capital is therefore not a material thing but a process that uses material things as moments in its continuously dynamic existence” (pg. 36-37). From this book it can be comprehended that capitalism results in poor conditions for majority of the population mainly the working class. Capitalism leads to struggles such as inequality between the wealthy and the working class, exploitation, and inflation. Capitalism is known to be the most “customary” or “greatest” economic system in our society; however, it is also the most ruthless, unfair system that causes many families just to survive in this unjust system. In today's world, wealth disparity has grown to a level the world has never seen before. The rich keep getting richer and the poor, poorer. Furthermore, he stresses over the idea of inequality for wealth, opportunity and class divisions. The way a private enterprise carries itself today, chain of command or hierarchy structure, this encourages for inequality and unfairness for workers. . Heilbroner mentions, “wealth is inextricably associated with inequality” (1992, p.27).Wealth inequality is an inescapable result of capitalist activity and wealth is the energy source for capitalist activity Heilbroner describes wealth as a “symbol of power and prestige” (1992, p.27), and mentions Adam Smith who describes wealth as, “the power of purchasing; a certain command over all the labor, or over all the labor which is then in the market” (Smith in Heilbroner, 1992, p.28). In this statement made by Smith, it is implied that capitalism offers the population in power more chances to influence the working class while leaving them as is remain the same or much lower. It can be summarized that a capitalist society only benefits the upper class who can keep up with the monetary conditions of Capitalism. The relationship between the two classes results,