A pyramid scheme earns money mainly by recruiting new members rather than by selling real products or genuine investment returns. Because it depends on an ever-growing number of recruits, it is mathematically unsustainable: when recruitment slows, the money runs out. Most participants, especially those who join later, lose money, while a small group near the top profits. That is why pyramid schemes are illegal in many countries, even though they have existed in various forms since the mid-to-late 19th century.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.