Perturbed by stagflation? In pain from recession? Sick with worry about whether the world economy can survive? You've gone to your corner economist and you couldn't understand the cure? Finally! An amusing, soundly researched, and highly accessible book that tells you everything you want to know about capitalism- the system its greatest theorists though could never survive.

In this fair, concise, and good-humoured book, Robert Lekachman, Distinguished Professor of Economics at the City University of New York, assesses capitalism for what it's supposed to do best: deliver the goods. He starts by questioning the United States, where capitalism seems as natural as breathing and the free market is as much a byword as Mom's apple pie. But what are the realities? To understand them, he wittily documents capitalism's history from Adam Smith and Karl Marx to late last night; from mercantilism to monetarism, with explanations in between of investment and money, business cycles, the postwar boom, and the present recession.

No sermons are preached. Readers must consider for themselves the dilemma that confronts us all: the future of capitalism and its effect on the world.