A reader asks:
'What is a simple explanation of MLM rackets?'
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First of all, the only test of whether a commentator on the 'MLM' cult phenomenon should be considered well-informed on the subject, and capable of answering this question, is whether the commentator's analysis of the 'MLM' cult phenomenon can be read as an instruction manual for instigating an 'MLM' cultic racket. Unfortunately, everything most academic, and media, commentators think they know about ‘Multi Level Marketing,' is false. For this has been perhaps the most successful, profitable and sustainable, cultic con job of modern history.
Anyone attempting to solve the 'MLM' enigma, first needs to understand that there is no quantifiable evidence (e.g. income tax payment receipts) proving that anyone who has a signed a contract with an 'Amway' copycat, so-called 'Multi-Level Marketing Direct Selling' company offering a so-called 'income/business opportunity,' has actually established a lawful, and commercially viable, business, in which an overall net-income has been generated (after the deduction of all start-up and operating costs) via the regular retailing of goods/services for a profit based on value and demand to members of the general public (i.e. persons who are not fellow 'MLM' contractors motivated by a false expectation of future reward). Thus, anyone claiming or implying that one penny of overall net-income, let alone life changing sums of money, can be generated lawfully by participating in a so-called 'MLM direct selling income/business opportunity,' cannot be telling the truth and will not provide any quantifiable evidence to back up his/her non-specific anecdotal statements.
In reality, starting with 'Amway,' all copycat so-called 'Multi-Level Marketing /Direct Selling income opportunities' have been the constituent parts of a vast, and bedazzling, fake constructed with the victims' own money. 'MLM' cult bosses have all been hiding effectively 100% overall net-loss/churn rates of unwitting participants. For this type of cultic racket was maliciously designed from the outset so that anyone pursuing one would waste his/her time and money trying to lure others into the same intellectually, and emotionally, overwhelming trap, so that the longer any unwitting person persisted in an 'MLM' racket, the more time and money he/she would be compelled to lose, and the more difficult it would become to face reality.
The external 'capitalist commercial' presentation might be different, but the age old method by which the majority of the unlawful profits have been generated in 'Amway' copycat 'MLM' cultic rackets, has been exactly the same as that employed by groups hiding behind a purely 'religious/esoteric' façade.
Essentially, 'MLM' cultic racketeers and their shill associates have all been pretending to have access to a secret knowledge, the 'Plan,' that has enabled them to transform from ordinary poor miserable humans, trapped in the traditional world of employment, into fabulously happy, healthy, prosperous and free super-humans living in a secure Utopia on Earth where everyone is a 'successful independent MLM business owner.' They have further pretended to be prepared to share this secret life-transforming knowledge with anyone for a price. However, part of the price has been the surrender of their unwitting victims' critical and evaluative faculties.
'MLM' cultic racketeers have all set up mafia-style, mystifying labyrinths of legally-independent corporate structures, in order not only to commit fraud, but also to prevent, and/or divert, investigation and isolate themselves from criminal liability.
David Brear (copright 2025)
