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Hello Objectivists, If you haven't heard yet, there is a very big Ponzi Scheme pyramid called MMM, http://i-mmm.com . It now has 20 million members (unverified). Unlike other Ponzi Schemes, this system doesn't have any product to sell, it sells itself as a sort-of bank. You deposit money, and get it out at 30% interest after a month, or three. There are different plans. Where does it get the money ? From advertising inself and getting more recruits. Its biggest users are the elderly people who were robbed of their pension in Russia and Former Soviet Union, and who are now able to have a decent living. However, many other people joined in, from other countries and are investing fairly large sums, $10,000 and up. The MMM "bank" has a, like a real bank, some money in the system, and some money coming and coming out. You can imagine that there is a net amount of money that is stable, for example, 1 billion, and can be invested into a real product, for example an Oil Refinery, which would bring in real dividents from products, rather than new people joining. So eventually the really exciting interest rates of 30% are going to fall to match the inflow of people and the means to make money from different products. So now we have this "bank". It was built by people puting in money for two reasons: - great interest - the philosophical idea of helping others, by pooling money together. And this was done at the expense of risk, because nobody knows if the system will survive another day (less people will reinvest than outgoing payments are due). So in a way MMM is like a gambling game. Moreover, the system is based on trust, nothing is stopping a member to run off with the money. (To understand this last statement, please note that the money is distributed in member's accounts, rather in one big account, and they are supposed to transfer the balances on command to appropriate destinations). What do you think about the moral implications of such a system ? Is this capitalism on socialism ? The official statement of the creator is that he wants to crash the current economic system where money is printed by the Reserve Bank and robbing people. Here I agree. He says that because the system of ever-increasing debt and money printing is a sort of pyramid, then the only way to beat it, is with another pyramid. However, the inclinations of the creator of MMM are socialistic -- he claims that banks are robing its clients by giving a smaller percentage than they could. From what I could gather he doesn't really believe in laissez-faire capitalism (although he never states this). He wants to build some kind of new way, once the current system is crashed. However, putting the ideas of the creator aside, and looking at the outcome -- can we say it is a bad thing ? A good thing ? Finally, suppose that we conclude that it is a bad thing, because it promotes socialism. (I leave that discussion open). Is it moral to still invest money into the system, for the following purpose: - Whatever money I make, I will return to those who will be in the end ripped off (who risked and invested, but didn't get their money back because the system collapsed). - I want to return that money in the form of Bitcoin. All those people participated in the MMM system, which is really defining its own currency, based on the weakness of conventional currency $. Because the BitCoin project is exactly that, if I return them their money in BitCoin, in a sense I'm putting their money to the good use. I tricked them into buying Bitcoin. - I plan to withhold a percentage of the balance for my work. So they won't get all 100% back of what I made on MMM, but a bit less. Say 90%. I hope I was clear enough, and looking forward to hear what you think.