'Amway/MLM' racketeer Richard DeVos dies - still no accurate explanation of 'MLM' in the media.

The following deconstructed analysis has been formulated to sharpen the critical and evaluative faculties of all unwary persons approaching so-called 'Multi-Level Marketing' from the dangerous (subjective) point of view that it must be a business/industry, rather than from the safe (purely-objective) point of view that they don't really know what it is.

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More than half a century of quantifiable evidence, proves beyond all reasonable doubt that:

• the widely-misunderstood phenomenon that has become popularly-known as 'Multi-Level Marketing' (a.k.a. 'Network Marketing') is nothing more than an absurd, non-rational,  cultic, economic pseudo-science maliciously-designed to lure unwary persons into de facto servitude, dissociate them from external reality and not only steal their money, but also deceive them into unconsciously acting the role of bait to lure other unwary persons (particularly their friends and family members) into the same trap. 

• the impressive-sounding made-up jargon term, 'MLM,' is therefore, the misleading title for an enticing structured-scenario of control which has been developed, and constantly acted out as  reality, by the instigators, and associates, of various copy-cat, major and minor, ongoing organised crime groups (hiding behind labyrinths of legally-registered corporate structures) to shut-down the critical, and evaluative, faculties of victims, and of casual observers, in order to perpetrate, and dissimulate, a series of blame-the-victim 'Long Cons*'  - comprising self-perpetuating rigged-market swindles**, a.k.a. pyramid scams (dressed up as 'legitimate direct selling income opportunites') and related advance-fee frauds (dressed up as 'legitimate: training and motivation, self-betterment, programs, recruitment leads, lead generation systems,' etc.).

• Apart from an insignificant minority of shills (whose leading-role in the 'Long Con' has been to pretend that anyone can achieve financial freedom simply by following their unquestioning example and exactly-duplicating a step-by-step-plan of recruitment and self-consumption), the hidden overall net-loss/churn rate for participation in so-called 'MLM income opportunities,' has always been effectively 100%.

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*A 'Long Con' is a form of fraud maliciously designed to exploit victims' existing beliefs and instinctual desires and make them falsely-believe that they are exercising a completely free-choice. 'Long Cons' comprise an enticing structured-scenario of control acted out as reality over an extended period. Like theatrical plays, 'Long Cons' are written, directed and produced. They involve leading players and supporting players as well as props, sets, extras, costumes, script, etc. The hidden objective of 'Long Cons' is to convince unwary persons that fiction is fact and fact is fiction, progressively cutting them off from external reality. In this way, victims begin unconsciously to play along with the controlling-scenario and (in the false-expectation of future reward) large sums of money or valuables can be stolen from them. Classically, the victims of 'Long Cons' can become deluded to such an extent that they will abandon their education, jobs, careers, etc., empty their bank accounts, and/or beg, steal, borrow from friends, family members, etc.

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** The enticing structured-scenario of control fundamental to all 'rigged-market swindles' is that people can earn income by first contributing their own money to participate in a profitable commercial opportunity, but which is secretly an economically-unviable fake due to the fact that the (alleged) opportunity has been rigged so that it generates no significant, or sustainable, revenue other than that deriving from its own ill-informed participants. For more than 50 years, 'Multi-Level Marketing' racketeers have been allowed to dissimulate rigged-market swindles by offering endless-chains of victims various banal, but over-priced, products, and/or services, in exchange for unlawful losing-investment payments, on the pretext that 'MLM' products/services can then be regularly re-sold for a profit in significant quantities via expanding networks of distributors. However, since 'MLM' products/services cannot be regularly re-sold to the general public for a profit in significant quantities (based on value and demand), 'MLM' participants have, in fact, been peddled infinite shares of their own finite money (in the false expectation of future reward). 

Thus, in 'MLM' rackets, the innocent looking products/sevices' function has been to hide what is really occurring - i.e The operation of an unlawful, intrinsically fraudulent, rigged-market where effectively no non-salaried (transient) participant can generate an overall net-profit, because, unknown to the non-salaried (transient) participants, the market is in a permanent state of collapse and requires its non-salaried (transient) participants to keep finding further (temporary) de facto slaves to sustain the enticing illusion of stability and viability.

Meanwhile an insignificant (permanent) minority direct the 'Long Con' - raking in vast profits by selling into the rigged-market and by controlling/withholding all key-information concerning the rigged-market's actual catastrophic, ever-shifting results from its never-ending chain of (temporary) de facto slaves.

Although cure-all pills potions and vitamin/dietary supplements, household and beauty, products have been most-prevalent, it is possible to use any product, and/or service, to dissimulate a rigged-market swindle. There are even some 'MLM' rackets that have been hidden behind well-known traditional brands (albeit offered at fixed high prices). Some 'MLM' rackets have included 'cash-back/discount shopping cards, travel products, insurance, energy/communications services' and 'crypto-currencies' in their controlling scenarios.

No matter what bedazzling product/service has been dangled as bait, in 'MLM' rackets, there has been no significant or sustainable source of revenue other than never-ending chains of contractees of the 'MLM' front companies. These front-companies always pretend that their products/services are high quality and reasonably-priced and that for anyone prepared to put in some effort, the products/services can be sold on for a profit via expanding networks of distributors based on value and demand. In reality, the underlying reason why it has mainly only been (transient) 'MLM' contractees who have bought the various products /services (and not the general public) is because they have been tricked into unconsciously playing along with the controlling scenario which constantly says that via regular self-consumption and the recruitment of others to do the same, etc. ad infinitum, anyone can receive a future (unlimited) reward.

I've been examining the 'MLM' phenomenon for around 20 years. During this time, I've yet to find one so-called 'MLM' company that has voluntarily made key-information available to the public concerning the quantifiable results of its so-called 'income opportunity'.

Part of the key-information that all 'MLM' bosses seek to hide concerns the overall number of persons who have signed contracts since the front companies were instigated and the retention rates of these contractees. 

When rigorously investigated, the overall hidden net-loss churn rates for so-called 'MLM income opportunites' has turned out to have been effectively 100%. Thus, anyone claiming (or implying) that it is possible for anyone to make a penny of net-profit, let alone a living, in an 'MLM,' cannot be telling the truth and will not provide quantifiable evidence to back up his/her anecdotal claims.

Although a significant number of 'MLM' front-companies (like 'Vemma', 'Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing', 'Wake Up Now') have been shut-down by commercial regulators, some of the biggest 'MLM' rackets (like 'Amway' ,'Herbalife', Forever Living Products' ) have continued to hide in plain sight whilst secretly churning tens of millions of losing participants over decades.

The quantifiable results of the self-perpetuating global 'Long Con' known as 'Multi Level Marketing,' have been fiendishly hidden by convincing victims that they are 'Independent Business Owners' and that any losses they incurred, must have been entirely their own fault. 

Blog readers should observe how (in the above linked-videos) chronic victims of 'MLM' cults are incapable of describing what they were subjected to in accurate terms. Even though they are no longer physically playing along with the 'Long Con's' controlling-scenario, they unconsciously continue to think, and speak, using the jargon-laced 'MLM' script - illogically describing themselves as 'Distributors.' 

Chronic victims of blame-the-victim cultic rackets who have managed to escape and confront the ego-destroying reality that they’ve been systematically deceived and exploited, are invariably destitute and dissociated from all their previous social contacts. For years afterwards, recovering cult victims can suffer from psychological problems (which are also generally indicative of the victims of abuse):

depression; overwhelming feelings (guilt, grief, shame, fear, anger, embarrassment, etc.); dependency/ inability to make decisions; retarded psychological/ intellectual development; suicidal thoughts; panic/ anxiety attacks; extreme identity confusion; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; insomnia/ nightmares; eating disorders; psychosomatic illness, fear of forming intimate relationships; inability to trust; etc.  

David Brear (copyright 2018)

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Richard Marvin DeVos Snr. was one of the instigators of 'Amway' which itself was a copy-cat of 'Nutrilite/ Mytinger & Casselberry,' the original blame-the-victim 'MLM Income Opportunity' cultic racket.

www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Amway/AUS/transplant.htm

Up until very recently, only one journalist had ever contacted me specifically about DeVos Snr. This was in the late 1990s, when it was suddenly discovered that, in 1997, DeVos Snr had somehow managed to jump a long queue of ailing British citizens, and pay £60 thousands to undergo an emergency heart-transplant operation in a UK National Health Service hospital (after he'd been refused treatment in the USA, because he was too old). However, although several highly-critical articles subsequently appeared in the UK press, what I told my inquisitive media-contact about DeVos Snr. (particularly, about the criminal origin of his fortune), was not published.

Last week, it was widely-reported that DeVos Snr. has finally died aged 92. However, so far, the media (particularly in Devos' home State of Michigan) has only published apparently factual obituaries, generally describing him in glowing-terms as:

• a conservative Christian businessman/philanthropist.
• co-founder of Amway. 
• owner of Orlando Magic basketball team.

• friend and supporter of several US Presidents, but particularly of Gerald Ford.
• major financial backer of the Republican party.
• former Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee.
• proponent of conservative/right wing religious policies.
• Father-In-Law of Donald Trump's Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos.

Several reality-inverting reports have gone so far as to say that DeVos was:

• responsible for promoting an entirely-new multi-billion $ industry around the globe.
• responsible for helping millions of people to start their own business.
• a true patriot who represented the American Dream.

In 2012, Forbes magazine listed Richard DeVos Snr. as the 60th wealthiest person in the USA and the 105th richest person in the world, with a personal fortune estimated at $5+ billions. However, I have yet to find any accurate explanation in the media of how, and from whom, DeVos Snr. actually acquired his mountain of money. That said, if you read the comments sections underneath his obituaries, you discover that a significant number of people are openly-rejoicing at the news of DeVos Snr.'s death. These commentators know damn-well that he was an otherwise-mediocre little charlatan who, for decades, got away with pretending absolute moral and intellectual authority whilst running an abusive blame-the-victim 'long con' that has caused, and is still causing, damage to millions of vulnerable people around the world (and not just financial damage).




https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/27/jimmy-savile-sexual-abuse

In truth, what has generally been published and broadcast about Richard DeVos Snr. in the immediate aftermath of his death, puts me in mind of what was generally published and broadcast about Jimmy Savile in the immediate aftermath of his death. The UK media eventually published explanations of how Jimmy Savile had got away with decades of abusive crimes, because of the 'Halo Effect' of his public philanthropy and his many associations with the great and the good.

Readers of this Blog will know that in the 1990s, I personally witnessed members of my family in the North of England undergo sudden radical personality transformations as a result of their falling under the influence of the pernicious 'Amway' fairy story .

Over the years, I have had contact with various people who have all witnessed similar transformations as a result of their loved ones falling under the malign influence of cults hidden behind the camouflage of 'Multi-Level Marketing/ Direct Selling.'

My advice to these people has been to remain calm and to try not lose contact with their loved ones, because in the overwhelming majority of cases, 'MLM' adherence does not last long. This is for the simple reason that most 'MLM' recruits cannot attract their own recruits and they cannot afford to continue. However, in general, the more cash, property and/or credit an 'MLM' recruit has access to: the more danger he/she is in. A significant minority of deeply-deluded victims have remained enslaved by the pernicious 'MLM' fairy story, sometimes for decades.

I know from my own nightmare personal experience that 'MLM' cult bosses can persuade their most-deluded victims to disclose personal information; particularly, concerning finances. In the worst cases, 'MLM' adherents will obey their group leaders 'advice' and then beg, and/or steal, and/or borrow, to continue to play their group's game of make-believe.  

The most-courageous, and entertaining, warning about the real nature of the 'MLM' phenomenon ever to be broadcast by the mainstream media, has come from the British-born satirist, John Oliver. At one point, he rightly began to compare 'MLM' groups to 'Scientology.'

A Blog reader who has only just discovered John Oliver's piece, has asked me what I would recommend as the best serious documentary about MLMs?

In truth, although there are several commendable attempts at documentary exposés of individual 'MLM' cultic rackets, no satisfactory serious explanation of the wider 'MLM' phenomenon has ever been filmed. Considering the fact that the pernicious 'MLM' fairy story was first put together in the late 1940s, and hundreds of versions of it have been peddled around the world, this lack of critical media interest in the wider-phenomenon is, in itself, remarkable.

https://vimeo.com/124063366

That said, an independent company, 'West Beach Films,' once began to film a comprehensive history, and analysis, of the 'MLM' phenomenon, but this ambitious project was never completed. Indeed, I was due to be interviewed for this film at the time its makers ran out of finance.


Years before I started my Blog, I met with a television producer. This man was responsible for a team of award-winning investigative journalists - some of whom had previously been examining the so-called 'Amway Multi-Level Marketing Income Opportunity.' 

I was told that 'victims' had been found in the UK who admitted wasting substantial amounts of time and money in 'Amway.' These witnesses also said that the organisation was 'cult-like' and they had begun to describe their overwhelming feelings of joy and excitement when they first got involved. However, it was obvious that the journalists had made the mistake of approaching 'MLM' from the dangerous (subjective) point of view that it must be some sort of dodgy business, rather than from the safe (purely-objective) point of view that they really didn't know what it is.

The producer told me that it had been decided to abandon a project to make a documentary about 'Amway,' not because it was feared that the company might sue, but on the grounds that the subject matter was 'too technical' and didn't concern, and wouldn't make sense to, most viewers.

David Brear (copyright 2018)