The Pyramid of Capitalist System is a common name of a 1911 American cartoon caricature critical of capitalism, copied from a Russian flyer of 1901. The graphic focus is on

stratification Stratification may refer to: Mathematics * Stratification (mathematics), any consistent assignment of numbers to predicate symbols * Data stratification in statistics Earth sciences * Stable and unstable stratification * Stratification, or st ...

social class A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...

and

economic inequality There are wide varieties of economic inequality, most notably income inequality measured using the distribution of income (the amount of money people are paid) and wealth inequality measured using the distribution of wealth (the amount of we ...

. The work has been described as "famous", "well-known and widely reproduced". A number of

derivative work In copyright law, a derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major copyrightable elements of an original, previously created first work (the underlying work). The derivative work becomes a second, separate work independent in fo ...

s exist. It was published in the 1911 edition of ''

Industrial Worker The ''Industrial Worker'', "the voice of revolutionary industrial unionism", is the magazine of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It is currently released quarterly. The publication is printed and edited by union labor, and is frequently ...

'' (The International Publishing Co.,

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

), a newspaper of the

Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...

, and attributed to "Nedeljkovich, Brashich, & Kuharich". The picture shows a literal "social pyramid" or hierarchy, with the wealthy few on the top, and the impoverished masses at the bottom. Crowned with a

money bag A money bag (or money sack) is a bag normally used to hold and transport coins and banknotes, often closed with a drawstring.capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...

, the top layer, "we rule you", is occupied by the

royalty Royalty may refer to: * Any individual monarch, such as a king, queen, emperor, empress, etc. * Royal family, the immediate family of a king or queen regnant, and sometimes his or her extended family * Royalty payment for use of such things as int ...

and state leaders. Underneath them are the

clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

("we fool you"), followed by the military ("we shoot at you"), and the

bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

("we eat for you"). The bottom of the pyramid is held up by the workers and the peasants ("we work for all... we feed all"). The work is based on older similar pictures. In 1900 the

Belgian Labour Party The Belgian Labour Party ( nl, Belgische Werkliedenpartij, BWP; french: Parti ouvrier belge, POB) was the first major socialist party in Belgium. Founded in 1885, the party was officially disbanded in 1940 and superseded by the Belgian Socialist ...

used a picture called "Pyramide à renverser" ("a pyramid that has to be overthrown") during its electoral campaign. A year later Nicolas Lokhoff's 1901 caricature of

Imperial Russian The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. The ...

society by the Union of Russian Socialists was published. The original picture showed workers supporting the pyramid on their backs, with the

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian language, Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or Indentation (typesetting), indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme scheme, rhyme and ...

: "The time will come when the people in their fury will straighten their bent backs and bring down the structure with one mighty push of their shoulders." Notable differences between the Russian 1901 original and the American 1911 imitation include the replacement of the Russian Empire's black eagle with a money bag, the

Russian tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the ter ...

and tsarina with a more generic trio monarch and state leaders in suits, two of the three

Orthodox Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to: Religion * Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...

clergy with a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

cardinal and a

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

minister, and the Russian Empire army with a more generic group of soldiers; no revolutionary stanza is present. In both pictures, a fallen child or child worker symbolizes the plight of the workers. Another shared element is a red flag raised amongst the workers, symbolizing the emergence of the

socialist movement The history of socialism has its origins in the 1789 French Revolution and the changes which it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. ''The Communist Manifesto'' was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847-4 ...

. The basic message of the image is a critique of the capitalist system, depicting a hierarchy of power and wealth. It illustrates a working class supporting all others, and if it would withdraw their support from the system it could topple the existing social order. This type of

criticism of capitalism Criticism of capitalism ranges from expressing disagreement with the principles of capitalism in its entirety to expressing disagreement with particular outcomes of capitalism. Criticism of capitalism comes from various political and philoso ...

is attributed to the French socialist

Louis Blanc Louis Jean Joseph Charles Blanc (; ; 29 October 1811 – 6 December 1882) was a French politician and historian. A socialist who favored reforms, he called for the creation of cooperatives in order to guarantee employment for the urban poor. Alth ...

References

External links

{{Commons, Pyramid of the Capitalist System (1911), position=left 1900 in art 1911 in art 1900 in the Russian Empire 1911 in the United States Political art Caricature Individual printed cartoons Criticism of capitalism Economic inequality Industrial Workers of the World culture Pyramids Socialist works