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In the South Park episode entitled "Gnomes (Underpants Gnomes)", the Underpants Gnomes are a community of underground gnomes who steal underpants, notably from Tweek.

The Underpants Gnomes have a three-phase business plan, consisting of:

Collect underpants

 ???

Profit!

None of the gnomes actually know what the second phase is, and all of them assume that someone else within the organization does. A similar business model is also found in one episode of Arthur, where an organization of pets form the Sock Exchange. The gnomes specifically satirize dot-com businesses with poorly devised business models, although the satire also lends itself to any ill-conceived business plan. The three-step business plan has become a recurring joke on websites like Slashdot, MetaFilter and other sites, with various things substituted for the first step (See also Slashdot subculture).

Beyond this simple explanation of a three-step business plan, the Underpants Gnomes symbolize the basic idea of the Marxist theory of exploitation as explained in Capital Volume I. In this book, Marx explains (and excuse me if this is over-simplified) that the capitalist starts only with a commodity (underpants). By the end of the day his commodity has doubled and thus turned into capital. Yet, no one can see what the steps in-between simple commodity and capital are. Marx's explanation is simple: the exploitation of labor. By only paying the laborer a set price for an unlimited amount of labor, the capitalist is then able to "suck" the extra capital out of the free amount of labor from the laborer. Thus, the capitalist now has two commodities that he can turn into capital: the original commodity that he started with (the underpants) the exploited labor of the laborer. Thus the capitalist has stolen the laborers commodity, his surplus labor, and sold it to make capital. The "???" that the underpants gnomes simply cannot see is the exploitation of labor. It is especially ironic that the rest of the episode has to do with the corporate takeover of a family owned business, and other, pro-capitalist ideas. As the people of Southpark finally realize though, the price paid for of a "fair" economy is that of a mediocre product...Tweek Coffee. Without allowing for competition, the people of Southpark never realize that there may be better Harbuck's coffee out there. In its own way the episode is making a case for the capitalist economic system.