I did upvote, it's witty, but it's a bit of a misrepresentation of how the economy works.

In practice, people don't tend to pay people to eat shit without gain. You are paying people to help you. Money gaslights everyone into helping each other, the most selfish people become the most selfless.

Of course, real capitalism is much more complex and much uglier than this fantasy. When certain people end up with long-term control of large piles of money, the whole thing gets distorted. They get to make lots of money on interest without doing anything, and making other people eat more shit for scraps. That's the "capital" part of capitalism.

But the toy world-model that this joke is making fun of, is actually the one core positive aspect of capitalism and brings all the prosperity we have: tricking people into helping each other.

> the most selfish people become the most selfless

You reminded me of this Stewart Brand quote:

> Computers suppress our animal presence. When you communicate through a computer, you communicate like an angel.

I scratch your back for a $10M IOU.

You scratch my back for a $10M IOU.

The debts cancel out.

How is the economic gain calculated?