Taking our cue from Anwar Shaikh's work in economics, rather than constantly invoking the perfection versus imperfection view of a real market economy like capitalism (as is done by both the orthodox and heterodox streams of modern mainstream economics), it might be better to simply talk in terms of the real versus the non-real or a realistic theory of the capitalist market economy versus an unrealistic or ideal theory of it - as this would remove any references to the perfectionist/imperfectionist divide in the theories of contemporary economics.
It is notable that prior to the emergence of marginalist economics (Jevons, Menger and Walras), which is the theoretical basis of modern orthodox neoclassical economics, there is no talk about perfect and imperfect competition in the works of the classical political economists like Smith, Ricardo and, especially, Marx. Rather, as Shaikh says, there's just real competition for them. So, it would have been an anathema to them to think otherwise.
On a personal note, until I had read anything about or by non-classical political economists, I would not had even considered that anyone interested in understanding capitalism would think in terms of the perfection/imperfection divide. In other words, it just wasn't a part of my conceptual toolkit. Of course, as one will gather, it's not something I want to buy into either, even though (I must admit) the possibility of doing so, while under the influence of the Joseph Stiglitzes of the world, was real for a period of time. However, the theoretical work of Anwar Shaikh has been pivotal in ensuring that I don't go down such a false theoretical path.
However, this has not prevented different schools of economists from including the concepts of perfection and imperfection into their theoretical vocabulary, despite where they stand on the subject of understanding capitalism as an economic system. Think of the Joan Robinsons and Joseph Stiglitzes of the economics profession. Their economic works are predicated on such a conceptual divide in order to develop their respective versions of a 'realistic' analysis of a capitalist market economy.
It also should not be overlooked that even within Marxism itself there is a tendency for some Marxist thinkers to go down the conceptual divide path of a perfectionist versus imperfectionist account of a real market economy like capitalism. They do it whenever they wish to point out that the real world of a capitalist market economy is nothing like the ideal theoretical world of a perfectly competitive market economy since it's full of 'market imperfections' - like, for example, when the Paul Barans and the Paul Sweezies of the world talk about 'monopolies'.
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