Forex: The Failure of Organizing Black People Through Capitalism

By: Aidaruus Shirwa

In 2019 and 2020, a phenomenon occurred: thousands of Black people came together for the first time in years under the same banner, with the same goals and the same strategies. This did not happen through Black Lives Matter, a political campaign, or a revolutionary organization. It happened through Forex.

“Forex” here refers not only to marketplace trading, but mainly to the pyramid-scheme academies that emerged during that period, such as IM Academy. The videos from that era may have been humorous, but we have to analyze the real political-economic reasons Black people gravitated toward these pyramid schemes, why they were so successful, and why they ultimately failed miserably for almost everyone except a select few. We will examine why organizing people through capitalism can never lead to mass liberation, only a dream of it.

WHAT WAS “FOREX”?

Forex, in its actual definition, is a capitalist means of trading foreign currency in a marketplace to make profit. It is similar to stock trading in the sense that you buy and sell currency depending on whether it increases or decreases in value.

For many people in the Black community, however, “Forex” referred to the groups that were formed to learn and do forex trading. Many people in the Black community did Forex or knew someone who did Forex. It was a “pay to get in” teaching and recruitment program, in which folks were encouraged to recruit more people to join and would get money for doing so. They were told they would make hundreds of dollars back from their initial payment to join the group and courses.

Many individuals involved called it a scam, and the majority lost funds. IM Academy, one of the leading pyramid-scheme groups, had its own data showing that 60% of customers cancelled or stopped paying for its trading training services within the first month, while 90% discontinued the services within six months. The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against IM Academy, and in this complaint, they exposed that IM Academy records showed very few people made much money through Forex, “with many, if not most, losing money.”

WHY DID BLACK PEOPLE LOVE FOREX?

Forex promised that if everyone locked in and worked hard, they could change their lives. Many people who joined came from poor backgrounds and felt hope for the first time in years. In many videos, you found the classic line being said: “This is for everyone who said I wouldn’t be shit.” People who were forced into poverty, propagandized to hate themselves, and never thought they’d amount to anything now had access to a community of people and a promise of money.

A dispossessed people who knew their jobs before were bullshit and weren’t paying them their worth and knew everyone else around them were in circumstances that were the same as them: broke and angry. With that anger came a need for a new method of income, and Forex presented itself as something different from the other jobs prominent in the Black community at the time. 

And like many other Black capitalist sell-outs, Forex presented itself as “community oriented”. The same as the “buy the block” real estate agents who just become the new landlords and sell their apartments at the same price that the previous landlord had. All play into Black people’s love for their community, the desire to uplift each other. 

It could almost make a Black person emotional, seeing thousands get together and work toward bettering their lives. In videos, people brought whole notebooks and took notes at sessions. Many people were inspired and ready to learn.

People were posting pictures that said they made it to “Platinum 150,” with promises that they would rise up and make weekly residuals of up to $100,000. They were told they could rise up and even get to chairman level. It seemed that thousands of people could go from being at the bottom of the barrel to being millionaires in a matter of months. They even had Floyd “Money” Mayweather endorsing them! (He’s a Zionist btw). Who wouldn’t want to be a part of this Black millionaire community?

However, over time, people realized the scam that had unfolded. People were left more broke than they were before and you still have people to this day trying to make a few dollars getting other people recruited. Now Forex is nothing but a failed pursuit for the majority of people involved. However, though Forex was a failure for the majority, it was a success for those who created it.

FOREX WAS A SUCCESS

As previously mentioned, Forex promised so much: if we work hard, we will make it out the hood. As we saw, the majority did not achieve this goal, and it quickly became clear that it was a pyramid scheme. However, capitalism itself is a pyramid scheme. The same lie is literally the basis of capitalism itself. Black and Brown people have faced poverty since their forced entrance into this country. The exploited and tricked Forex traders who left their jobs were only brought into a new method of exploitation, just repackaged. The CEOs made hundreds of millions of dollars off this gimmick, and everyone else was left dry. Forex did exactly what it was supposed to do, exploit poor working-class people to make millions for a few rich people on top. 

Forex’s business model wasn’t currency trading; its source of profit was from a subscription plan to a delusion of economic mobility. Forex played into the bourgeois aspirations of the Black community, particularly the low-income Black community. That we’re just poor because we were born like that and we can all make it out and so many of us can be rich. These bourgeois aspirations are pushed by people like Jay-Z, who actually made his wealth by exploiting many artists under the Roc Nation record label and Tidal streaming services.

Of course they had Money Mayweather as a poster boy for Forex. He did win the “Champion for Israel” award for his advocacy for the genocidal Zionist state. With his billion dollars he turned a blind eye to his poor impoverished community in Grand Rapids, Michigan and donated $1 million dollars of aid to Israel. There is no uplifting the Black community through capitalism, there is only uplifting a Black individual through capitalism. We must be honest on who benefits from this economic practice, and you must be honest in your intentions of engaging in it. 

The question isn’t simply what is Blackness as an identifier, but instead understanding what Black people’s position in a capitalist system is. Which in an objective historical sense has been incompatible with this system, whether under the enslavement of Africans here, colonialism, Jim Crow or the current era of the mass carceral state. The economic subjugation and social alienation of Black people here and abroad has been foundational to the building of this country. To try to reconcile this to benefit the masses of Black people is quite literally idealist and irresponsible, looking at the historical track record.

IM Academy leaders made tens of millions of dollars off of finessing people. It is quite humorous that they faced a Federal Trade Commission investigation and punishment, while other corporate bourgeois forces have faced no consequences for their actions.

Instead of organizing in a collective group for collective interests, such as improving the material conditions of our communities (more housing, food access, healthcare), people who did Forex fell into the mindset of individual financial gain in a group setting. To work for individual interests in a collective setting seems contradictory, but not for those on top collecting the profits, that’s what a company is. Many who did Forex are still in the financial status they were in before doing Forex. People went from being Platinum 1500 to making $15.00 an hour. It’s an unfortunate but real truth, however, like any loss we take, we must ask what did we learn from it?

The thing we must understand is that we must stop looking at our circumstance of poverty as an individual circumstance, and instead understand it as a manufactured reality for the masses of Black people in this country, ushered in by a rich and exploitative class. Once we understand this, we understand that the only means of liberating ourselves is to abolish the exploitative relationship we have with these rich capitalists.

This is what we call understanding a contradiction, society is not something that exists spontaneously, but instead the society we live in is built by 2 groups or forces in opposition with each other. In capitalism, the contradiction that society is built on is between the capitalists and the working class/poor, and that general contradiction manifests in particular different ways. This is why people who left their jobs working at warehouses, restaurants or office jobs, found the same problem at Forex; the system itself will always make it so that in every single industry the poor are exploited and a few capitalists get the majority of the profits. Capitalism itself is the chain that binds us, but engaging in capitalism you are not breaking that chain, you are strengthening it. 

However, how can we end this exploitative relationship with the capitalists if the whole system is built on it? The answer is simple: we must transition into a completely new system, one that puts people on top, A.K.A socialism. “Generational wealth” is not individual wealth passed down by generation; it is wealth that is distributed among this whole generation. No Black bank, Black Wall Street, or Black CEO will do so, as we saw with Forex, they will take that wealth for themselves.

FOREX OR FOR US?

We can learn a lot from Forex, as exploitative as it was; Black people had the skills, hope, and, most importantly, understanding that they can change their conditions. We are able to organize and get together. Many people, out of compassion, tried to bring their community into Forex in hopes that their friends and families would improve their lives. Now we must bring our community into a space where we can organize against the Forex chairmen, the Jay-Zs, and the other capitalists, Black or white. Instead of making money in Forex, we must make a society for us.

What we learned from IM Academy, is what we also learned from all our capitalist exploiters whether Black like Jay-Z and Floyd, or white like Tim Cook or Zuckerberg. That people who make financial gain in this system did so by exploiting poor and working class people. These people are our oppressors and our enemies. 

From the desire to do Forex, we learned that we can organize thousands of impoverished Black people, and that people know their conditions can be changed. From the outcome of Forex, we learned that organizing through capitalism will never liberate us. It has always failed. However, organizing against capitalism will liberate us. Now ask yourself: are you willing to do the hard work for revolution like you did for Forex? To gather 100s of Black people to learn and struggle for their freedom? Not their individual "financial freedom”, but the freedom of their whole communities. Then the answer is simple: join a revolutionary organization and fight for your liberation. Self determination for our people, no determination for our oppressor!

Sources:

1. Federal Trade Commission, “Lead Defendants in the IM Mastery Academy MLM Scheme to Turn Over Tens of Millions of Dollars in Assets to Settle FTC Charges,”

2. Mao Zedong, On Contradiction 

3. Robert L. Allen, Black Awakening in Capitalist America.

4. “Forex (FX): Definition, How to Trade Currencies, and Examples,” Investopedia.

5. “Floyd Mayweather Receives Champion of Israel Award,” Israel National News