Far in the future, in a perfectly capitalist society, people are bred for their roles in life, take a drug (Soma) which keeps them contented and using their earning to buy and play expensive games. Bernard Marx is discontented with this and turns out to be partially resistant to the usual conditioning techniques used to keep people under control. He goes off in search of a "savage reservation" where he believes people are allowed to live free.

If "1984" describes a book where socialism is taken to extremes, this describes a similar future for capitalism. It portrays a society dedicated to consuming resources at all costs and gradually stratifying --unable to change even to avoid it's own destruction.