Pyramid Schemes, continued

Are you a part of a pyramid scheme? Don't be too sure you're not.

One defense that multi-level marketers (e.g. the Amway zombies, etc.) will make is that “all corporations are pyramids.” This means there is a leader or leaders at the top, then a few more senior executives with less power at lower salaries, and underneath them are middle management, and so on, with the largest number of the lowest paid, most disempowered employees at the bottom.

This is true. Most corporations are pyramids, as are many churches. Think of it, there's a pastor at the top, then an associate pastor or two, followed by elders, then deacons, and so on. At the very bottom of the pyramid is the single largest group, the chump churchgoer. If that sounds harsh, I've been the chump churchgoer, doing menial chores in the shadow of a celebrity pastor who was making more than twice my salary, tax free.

As I see it, these are the characteristics of the pyramid:

A single or handful of leaders are at the top of the organization.

A mass of followers and members are at the bottom of the organization.

There is a disparity in income, power, and status between top and bottom.

The efforts of those at the bottom benefit those at the top.

A person's chances of moving from the bottom to the top are illusory. (The game is rigged.)

People work harder than they otherwise would (put in extra hours, volunteer work, pay for things out of their own pockets, give up weekends, take dangerous work,etc.) because they overestimate their ability to move upwards.

For a woman, being part of the pyramid is no problem. She can sleep or marry her way to the top (which is the same thing). Supported by a boyfriend, husband, or similar rube, she can work part-time, turn down the promotion or transfer, or use her sex appeal to have men do her work for her. She can marry and drop out of the pyramid, then re-enter as she sees fit.

For a man, to be a part of the pyramid is to volunteer for a lifetime of slavery, with no hope of Moses killing your Egyptian slave master. Remember the woman who coasts through her tenure at the pyramid? Coming and going as she pleases, taking assignments that suit her, dropping out and in, all the while benefiting because of her “minority” status? Some dumbass in the pyramid is going to pick up her tab, and return home from a hellish day hauling several ton blocks of stone up the pyramid, to find himself waving a palm frond to cool some spoiled would-be Cleopatra reclining on a couch and popping grapes into her mouth.

Our pyramid slave will spend his entire life working to build a tribute to another man, constructing a monument to cast a slavedriver and exploiter of the first order as a god. The pyramid slave will feel scars from the whip spread across his back, like vines on a crumbling rock. But he'll go back, day after day, because someday he'll sit in the shade and drink from the gold cup. In the end he has his tongue cut out and he's buried alive with the pharaoh.

Oops. I spent my whole life on an illusion.

Next: The Way Out