America isn’t really practicing capitalism, according to a newly published book. It’s “fake capitalism”, with a few massive companies killing their competition.

“The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition” was written by Jonathan Tepper, founder of Variant Perception, an investment research firm that gives advice to money managers. The co-author was Denise Hearn, head of business development.

“Capitalism has been the greatest system in history to lift people out of poverty and create wealth, but the ‘capitalism’ we see today in the United States is a far cry from competitive markets,” the authors wrote in the book,  part of which was excerpted in Business Insider. “What we have today is a grotesque, deformed version of capitalism.”

There is no such thing as capitalism without competition, the book points out.

“Competition matters because it prevents unjust inequality, rather than the transfer of wealth from consumer or supplier to the monopolist. It creates clear price signals in markets, driving supply and demand. It promotes efficiency. It creates more choices, more innovation, economic development and growth, and a stronger democracy by dispersing economic power. It promotes individual initiative and freedom.

An absence of competition means an absence of evolution, a failure to adapt to new conditions. It threatens our survival,” warned Tepper and Hearn.

The tech sector is a prime example of the lack of competition. “Google completely dominates internet searches with an almost 90% market share. Facebook has an almost 80% share of social networks. Both have a duopoly in advertising with no credible competition or regulation,” Hearn and Tepper wrote.

Then there’s Amazon, which totally dominates e-commerce. Add, Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android which completely control the mobile app market.

The laws to prevent sector dominance by one company don’t seem to be working.

“Capitalism is a game where competitors play by rules that everyone agrees. The government is the referee, and just as you need a referee and a set of agreed rules for a good basketball game, you need rules to promote competition in the economy. Left to their own devices, firms will use any available means to crush their rivals. Today, the state, as referee, has not enforced rules that would increase competition, and through regulatory capture has created rules that limit competition,” wrote the authors.

Think about this: Just two corporations control 90 percent of the beer sold in America; The country’s banking assets are in the hand of only five banks; four companies control the entire U.S. beef market.

“Many states have health insurance markets where the top two insurers have an 80 percent to 90 percent market share. For example, in Alabama one company, Blue Cross Blue Shield, has an 84 percent market share and in Hawaii it has 65 percent market share,” Bloomberg reported.

And, this is just a few industries. So where does this leave small businesses? Without much power or market share.