I don't agree with this. Would you classify Google stock a pyramid scheme? You get zero dividend, zero voting rights, etc. etc. The only utility of owning a Google share is to sell it later when it's worth more. An important difference is that Google generates value to back its increasing stock price, whereas pyramid schemes do not.
With investment we can have win/win/win situations. For example: an investor purchases a bond with a yield (thus making a profit), the issuer -- a producer of some good -- uses the capital to buy more efficient machinery, thus enabling him to lower costs and sell more product (thus making a profit), and the end result for the consumer of this good/product is a decrease in price (a net profit also).
While speculation does have economic value, the profits made by speculators is zero-sum: those who bet correctly take money away from those who bet wrongly. As such, it's categorically different from investment, as outlined above.
On further thought, though, perhaps this classification of speculation only applies to commodities, and doesn't make sense for stock. After all, instead of paying out dividends, companies can just use this money to buy back stock, thus transferring profits to investors in this manner instead.