Multilevel Marketing Blows

Amway, Quickstar, Herbal Life, and a host of other great American institutions have one thing in common. What is that? They are all well-devised schemes to steal money from stupid people. Under that premise, nobody can say that there is a victim in such schemes. If people are dumb enough to fall for somebody’s “exciting business opportunity” pitch, then by all means, they didn’t deserve to have their money in the first place. Likewise, the proprietors of such pyramid schemes are just taking advantage of one of the fundamental principles of business, and how can they be held accountable for that?

That principle is as follows: The more stupid people that you have generating revenue for you, the more money you can make. Usually, you get people to generate revenue for you by performing some sort of viable business good or service like washing dishes, selling video games, or spraying for insects. However, legitimate business ideas take some hard work determining what consumers actually want and finding a way to give it to them in such a way that your revenues exceed your costs. But what if you could just get people to pay you money for no apparent reason? That would be perfect. That is where multilevel marketing comes into play. You can create some B.S. product or service, and then have people pay you for the right to tap into their marketing network and sell your B.S. product. The problem is that no matter how dumb people are, sooner or later they figure out that the product you are selling sucks so hard that they will never be profitable by selling it.

Here comes the problem and the solution to multilevel marketing. Once the people at the base of the pyramid get tricked by the people at the top, it is as if the people at the top say, “Ha ha, we tricked you sucker. But don’t stop paying us money just because our product sucks. We make $5000 a week from the comfort of our own home just by tricking stupid people like you into buying into our organization. And being as how there are plenty of stupid people in the world you could totally trick someone else into paying you to be a part of the organization, and you, too can make $(insert some ridiculously stupid amount of money that gives people false hope) from the comfort of your own home.”

So what exactly are multilevel marketing firms selling? They are selling the right to trick people into paying them money for no apparent reason, so that they can trick people into paying them money and so on and so on. This really is a beautiful scheme because it plays on a few great economic principles.
1. In our modern society, people are rewarded for stupidity, therefore, there is an excess in the supply of stupid people
2. The economic assumptions of having too many stupid people are as follows:
• They are unaware of the fact that in order to get money, you must provide an equally valuable good or service to people. In other words, the market will always pay you what you are worth and any attempt to make any more is pretty much futile.
• When stupid people fall for schemes which are contrary to the above statement, they are not smart enough to cut their losses and run. Instead, they will keep trying harder to contradict the laws of economics to break even on their dumb decisions.
3. When there is an excess of stupid people in the market, there must be organizations constructed with the sole purpose of separating these stupid people from any and all money that they may come across.

When you look at this economic model you can’t necessarily be angry with multilevel marketing companies. They have a role to play in the American economy. If they didn’t exist then the revenue they generate would just fall into the hands of NASCAR, Wal-Mart, and any local barber shops that specialize in mullets, rat-tails, and shaving lines into the side of people’s heads. So if multilevel marketing means I have to pick between more mullet-having dudes racing off to Wal-Mart to buy Dale Earnheardt Jr. Decals for their El Camino or a couple more rich guys who have made their money by exploiting stupid people, then I welcome more multilevel marketing.

Ultimately, you shouldn’t get angry that multilevel marketing exists. You should only be angry if somebody thinks you are dumb enough jump into the bottom level of a pyramid scheme. And if you are a multilevel marketer here are a few pieces of advice.

1. Just because you are dumb enough to get on the bottom of the pyramid scheme does not mean that I am willing to join you.
2. If you really want to convince me that your business proposition is a good idea, then you should probably move out from your parents’ house or buy a nicer car than your 1989 Honda Civic hatchback.
3. You aren’t fooling anyone, I can see the financial desperation in your eyes.