A firehose in the sky that sucks the rain back in.

But it does describe the control of resources and to an extent force, which is “political” in addition to economic.

That’s a valid point, though I still wouldn’t call it a pyramid scheme.

You’re not forced to take on that debt though, nor is the debt unpayable unless you take on more debt. Some people put themselves into a ponzi-like situation either through poor financial decision making or circumstances so shit that they can’t do any better, but the average person doesn’t need to take out a loan on a freaking pair of nikes or even a car or house. It’s a cultural norm to get a mortgage, but if you do the math it often doesn’t make sense to and isn’t anywhere close to mandatory. At most you could argue that the US government debt works that way, but even that’s iffy and depends on your geopolitical outlook.

How so though? This sounds like a statement that’s meant to be flashy but doesn’t actually hold up. Pyramid schemes are characterized by a) an eventual lack of ability to recruit more people, b) recruitment rather than a product or a service being the driver, and c) a person at the bottom left with nothing, including recourse. Capitalism, even completely free capitalism, doesn’t work like that unless you specifically rig it to do so. That’s called “corruption”.