Orthodox economics operates within a hypothesized world of perfect competition in which perfect consumers and firms act to bring about supposedly optimal outcomes. The discrepancies between this model and the reality it claims to address are then attributed to particular imperfections in reality itself. Most heterodox economists seize on this fact and insist that the world is characterized by imperfect competition. But this only ties them to the notion of perfect competition, which remains as their point of departure and base of comparison. There is no imperfection without perfection.

In Capitalism, Anwar Shaikh takes a different approach. He demonstrates that most of the central propositions of economic analysis can be derived without any reference to standard devices such as hyperrationality, optimization, perfect competition, perfect information, representative agents, or so-called rational expectations. This perspective allows him to look afresh at virtually all the elements of economic analysis: the laws of demand and supply, the determination of wage and profit rates, technological change, relative prices, interest rates, bond and equity prices, exchange rates, terms and balance of trade, growth, unemployment, inflation, and long booms culminating in recurrent general crises.

正统经济学是在一个假设的完全竞争的世界里运作的，在这个世界里，完美的消费者和公司采取行动，带来了所谓的最佳结果。这种模式与它声称要解决的现实之间的差异，则归因于现实本身的特殊缺陷。大多数异端经济学家抓住这一事实，坚持认为世界的特点是不完全竞争。但这只会将它们与完美竞争的概念联系在一起，这仍然是它们的出发点和比较的基础。没有完美就没有不完美。

在资本主义中，安瓦尔·谢赫采取了不同的方法。他证明，大多数经济分析的中心命题都可以在不参考标准工具的情况下推导出来，如超理性、最优化、完全竞争、完全信息、代表性代理人或所谓的理性预期。这种观点使他能够重新审视经济分析的几乎所有要素：供求规律、工资和利润率的确定、技术变革、相对价格、利率、债券和股票价格、汇率、贸易条件和平衡、增长、失业、通货膨胀，长期的繁荣最终导致反复出现的一般性危机。