I'd say it's more like disguised feudalism. We're all peasants for the few kings and queens that have all the money at the top.
I don't think people actually agree on the definition of capitalism itself, I just looked it up and was a little surprised how definitive it is:
an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.
If you asked whether capitalism is a political system, at least in my random polling, 2 out of 9 respondents said No.
Yes Marx formalized this opinion.
It's the owners of the land and the means of production that control all of the wealth.
Now it’s the owners of the holding companies who own the owners of all the rest doing the controlling.
Capitalism is now playing 3D chess
If anything this understates the problem.
True, because it's also a giant Ponzi scheme. We pick up new debt today to pay off debt from yesterday, and we hope expanding GDP and inflation will always offset the difference.
It fundamentally is NOT a pyramid scheme. In a pyramid scheme there is no actual product or service of value and simply extracts wealth from the people in lower tiers. Value, or wealth, is simply the byproduct of an equitable transaction between two or more parties.
Except that you're describing commerce, not capitalism. Capitalism is the idea that the commerce has value, and that one can own the value of the commercial activity. Further, the value of the business is tied to it's growth.
Further, products and services are never exchanged in an equitable transaction between two parties, because capitalism necessitates a third party, the capitalist. The capitalist must acquire products and services from employees for less than their true value, and then sell them to consumers for more than their true value.
And because capitalism demands growth, one or both of those two margins must continue to expand. This means workers must be pressured to work for less and less, which is why the capitalist opposes social services, universal healthcare, and affordable housing. This also means the capitalism opposes consumer protections, environmental protections, and taxes that provide a functioning society that might interfere with their growth.
Now what happens when every producer and consumer is fighting for the same margins, the same advantages, and the same growth? Then the capitalist seeks new avenues for new capital and new capitalists. Building business on ensuring the growth of business for other capitalists. Selling the idea that you, too, can join us at the top of the pyramid, all the while kicking down ladders they climbed to get there.
So no, the system itself isn't a pyramid scheme. It's just an idea that encourages pyramid schemes because it relies on impossible growth, like a cancer eating away at society.
Transactions are often not equitable, and most wealth bubbles up to the people on the top tiers.
Markets are not always fair or efficient but that doesn't mean capitalism is a pyramid scheme. It is still very much the opposite.
Unregulated capitalism places all of the power in the hands of the wealthy. Even with the amount of regulation in place, the last 4 decades has irrefutably proven that. The transfer of wealth from the bottom 95% to the top 5% has has been insane.
The only reason we need so much regulation is because people are garbage and if they can gain something for nothing, they will. You cannot consider the pure idea of capitalism without also considering the reality of human nature, that it is inherently going to create a pyramid scheme like situation where the top transfer power and wealth to themselves in the largest quantities they can, in spite of pesky things like laws and taxes.
Yes that is true, and you can view wealth distribution as pyramid shaped, but that is not what a pyramid scheme means. As noted the system is very good at producing massive amounts of commodities, distributing them all over the planet, and exchanging them for your labor. If capitalism did nothing useful it would have disappeared long ago.
Trickle up economics
It's hardly a trickle either.
Shit, even at a trickle pace...
If I somehow got one single penny from every person on the planet, I'd have about $80,000,000...
Do you have a penny to spare for the cause?.. 😂
you know what's funny? you still wouldn't be close to the rich rich people
I caught myself mid laugh before realizing the reality of that statement.
Honestly one of the reasons I fell for a pyramid scheme coming out of high school.
A friend invited me and I went to shit on it and get him out, but the main guy's whole thing was "everything is a pyramid scheme, at least here you have the chance to build a pyramid beneath you."
Obviously there were other reasons as old as time, but the argument of "so what, your 'regular job' is already a pyramid scheme you can't win" was pretty rattling to a teenager in 2011.
The difference between a pyramid scheme and a good business is where your money comes from, in a pyramid scheme it comes from the people at the bottom of the pyramid, in a business it comes from selling goods and/or services, that's not saying I agree with big business, but one is profiting off of legitimate customers, the other is profiting off it's own "employees". I nearly got caught into one a few years ago too, until I realized what it was, at that point they had only taken a couple $100 for the interview and sign up stage, i had to block my card for them to never get access again, because even though i didnt complete sign up, thwy kept charging me monthly
To be more specific, fractional-reserve banking system creates this giant pyramid scheme, not capitalism per se.
Please explain, how exactly is fractional-reserve banking a pyramid scheme?
Because it allows banks to lend out money they don't have and when the banks lobby hard enough to completely remove whats left of the gold standard, the sky's the limit for lending out money. Creating money out of thin air increases inflation. However, in a weird way it impoverishes the lower classes while inriching the elite class because the latter tends to better connected and therefor closer to the "monetary spigot". This allows the elite class to buy up everything(land, companies, lobby/bribe governments)from the top down like a game of pacman.
No, it is not. It is brutal in many ways. But that it is not. Neither is socialomswor communism.
Pyramid schemes are zero-sum. I steal and gain, you lose. Capitalism and even communism are not zero-sum games. They are net-positive. They involve people making goods and services for others.
Pyramid schemes don't have to be zero-sum. All you need are assholes at the top trying to suck up as many resources as they can. Imagine the shape that makes.
DAE Capitalism bad?
omg me
Yes!
I've seen several thought experiments about capitalism, and letting it run to its extreme conclusion.
To all the people here ranting about monetary debt: its not an issue. Money isn't designed to hold value in the long term. It's a feature, not a bug.
It's just really unfortunate for those who play the game as if money were an asset. It's meant for transactions, not for storage.
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.