I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you that hustle culture can be deceptive or exploitative, but I think your reasoning is off.
Life, society, careers and even the idea of a pension are essentially also a pyramid scheme under your definition... If you just put in your time, pay your dues to the people above you, you’ll get what you want, eventually, through the work of those below you. No?
This is too generous of an interpretation though, the actual defining aspect of a pyramid scheme is that there is no real value creation (a monetized product or service), it’s fueled mainly by hype and speculation without profitability. Which, society, careers, etc obviously do create profit so they are not pyramid schemes in the full sense of the word.
But to your actual point, if I’m getting it right, yes all these things are somewhat exploitive of individuals, selling some distant promise. Which they are, as are all social systems designed by the more resourceful portion of the population to create stability (older, richer, smarter, etc). At the end of the day it’s about amassing enough perceived value by others in what you’re doing, and yes the threshold where that becomes a pyramid scheme is a blurred and disappearing line.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you that hustle culture can be deceptive or exploitative, but I think your reasoning is off.
Life, society, careers and even the idea of a pension are essentially also a pyramid scheme under your definition... If you just put in your time, pay your dues to the people above you, you’ll get what you want, eventually, through the work of those below you. No?
This is too generous of an interpretation though, the actual defining aspect of a pyramid scheme is that there is no real value creation (a monetized product or service), it’s fueled mainly by hype and speculation without profitability. Which, society, careers, etc obviously do create profit so they are not pyramid schemes in the full sense of the word.
But to your actual point, if I’m getting it right, yes all these things are somewhat exploitive of individuals, selling some distant promise. Which they are, as are all social systems designed by the more resourceful portion of the population to create stability (older, richer, smarter, etc). At the end of the day it’s about amassing enough perceived value by others in what you’re doing, and yes the threshold where that becomes a pyramid scheme is a blurred and disappearing line.