RICO provides for private treble damage actions for 'any person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of section 1962 of this chapter...' This section is closely patterned after section 4 of the Clayton Act, which creates a private treble damage action for any person injured in 'business or property' by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws. The Federal courts severely limit the number of private plaintiffs in the antitrust field through the enforcement of stringent standing rules. Under the rules, standing to prospective plaintiffs is often denied because the recoveries sought are deemed duplicative, ruinous, speculative, or windfall. Further, to establish standing, an antitrust plaintiff must show two elements: an injury to his/her 'business or property' and that the injury was 'by reason of' a violation of the antitrust laws. To date, the antitrust standing rules have not been applied to RICO treble damage actions. They should not be applied in the future, because the antitrust laws differ markedly in purpose and focus, and the policies and reasons that prompted development of the antitrust standing rules are not found behind RICO. While the antitrust laws have the primary purpose of preserving economic competition in legitimate economic enterprises, RICO aims at providing financial damages that will cripple or terminate an illegitimate enterprise seeking to infiltrate legitimate business. There is no overriding policy for protecting the economic competitive capacity of defendants as there is in antitrust action. A total of 199 footnotes are listed.