&gt; People who start pyramid schemes create huge &quot;compensation&quot; for themselves, ergo they are doing something valuable for society?<p>Economic value isn&#x27;t necessarily &quot;valuable for society&quot;, it&#x27;s &quot;valued by people as measured by some particular metric based on the preferences expressed in their spending behaviour&quot;. Gambling for instance is something that could be said to have little value to society, but has economic value in the sense that gamblers obviously get some satisfaction out of it or else they wouldn&#x27;t put so much money into it.<p>Pyramid schemes generally involve fraud, and when someone is defrauded into buying something economics doesn&#x27;t consider that purchase an expression of their preferences. If it didn&#x27;t involve fraud and people knew it was a pyramid scheme yet still invested in it, then they&#x27;d have to perceive some value in investing else why would they do it?