Which is not to say that it is perfect or superior to Earth and the larger Federation’s comparatively egalitarian post-scarcity economy, or even particularly ethical.
However, from what we’re shown, the Ferengi political structure (which is clearly part and parcel with it’s commercial structure) does not, with the one HUGE exception of it’s treatment of women, make use of divisive social issues to distract its work force from the disadvantages of capitalism. Unlike contemporary Western capitalism, everyone on Ferenginar from the wealthiest to the poorest appears to operate from the same transparent, if morally bankrupt, ruleset, and the powerful, importantly, don’t pretend otherwise.
This is a dark but kind of brilliant aspect of the rules of acquisition - All members of society, including laborers, are taught from birth to operate from a position of mutual distrust and can operate comfortably with full knowledge that the person on the other side of the table will disregard all other concerns in order to take complete financial advantage of them, and they will do the same. This bypasses a lot of steps that would otherwise be required in terms of building trust or engaging in any kind of sales or negotiation, although there is likely a lot more onus on each individual to do the calculus on any given business transaction internally to ensure that all of their vulnerabilities are accounted for. The phrase ‘trust me’ must be a complete joke in all contexts.
Furthermore, because greed is not just a social value but a desirable and marketable job skill, the playing field, which is horrific from the perspective of most 24th century humans, may actually be more level than even modern capitalism. There’s evidence to suggest that if even the poorest worker can successfully skim profits without leaving immediate evidence behind, this is almost blameless. Quark knows that Rom shaves the latinum, for example.
This is not a complete theory and I’m sure there are plenty of counterexamples, but mostly I just wanted to gripe that shit is so tough irl right now that even working as a Ferengi waiter seems like a dream by comparison.
(Removing the mod hat here)
That is a good point about the power of the FCA, although I wonder how much of an influence they actually have on the most well off of Ferengi society. Certainly they talk a big game, and Quark is terrified when a liquidator shows up, but chances are the guy running the bar down the street from wherever you live would be pretty unnerved if the IRS (or equivalent) sent an agent to their door under similar circumstances. Would Gaila at the peak of his financial powers have found Brunt to be equally terrifying?
There’s also the matter of what the FCA actually enforces. They come down pretty hard on concealing financial records, but mostly we see them show up to make sure that Quark is living up to the Ferengi ideals of being as cruel and exploitative to his customers and employees as possible. That is not an area where the most efficiently sociopathic paragons of Ferengi society are likely to run into any problems, so even if they could be prosecuted for such infractions, in practice there’s nothing there to worry them.
I wanted to believe