The great pyramids were built by slaves. Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash

The American Pyramid Scheme That We Call “Capitalism” is a Very Subtle Form of Slavery

Most pyramid schemes are illegal. Not this one.

Everything we do is an input toward our future evolution.

I believe that from a purely evolutionary perspective, nobody truly profits from slavery. From a high-level, holistic point of view, the people who appear to benefit from slavery are not profiting from their dominance. American capitalism is now so bad that the people at the top are eating the hands that feed them. They’re adapting to a life of dependence upon other people.

The purpose of acquiring and maintaining dominance in any realm is to avoid accountability. That means that dominant people tend to insulate themselves from their mistakes. We saw this in the wake of the collapse of the housing bubble in 2008. No one was accountable, no one listened to any of the warnings, and the consequences were socialized while the profits were privatized.

In this world of nearly 8 billion people, there is a pyramid. The people at the top of that pyramid are entirely dependent upon the people on the bottom. The people on the top are such a tiny minority that, if the rest of the world put their collective minds to it, they could take down the people at the top. I like to think of them as the dependent donor class.

If we look closely at the highest achievements ever made by man, we can see the cumulative efforts of those 7.8 billion people underneath them. Our greatest achievements would not be possible without the bottom 2 billion people on the planet.

If you’re a middle-class American like I am, you might notice that everything you touch was made by someone or something else. Middle-class people don’t make the things they wear, sleep on, travel in, live in, or buy. They are entirely dependent upon someone else to make them.

Your garden variety billionaire is no different.

1 billion people have just a hole to pee or poop in. Another 1 billion people have no running water. Middle-class America is dependent upon them, too. We just don’t like to think about it.

And we’re collecting on the tiny surpluses left over by those people below us at the end of each…