MLM Global Parasite

I am concerned about the threat MLM poses to the economy in the USA and the global economy as well. In the third world MLMs are turning microloan opportunities for the developing world into pyramid-scam garbage. The pyramid scheme advocacy lobbying group called the "Direct Selling Association" says MLMs did 34 billion dollars of business in 2018, and that same year total box office revenues were around 40 billion dollars (so that it's safe to same MLMs probably made more money than the global movie industry did over the pandemic.)

That is a whole lot of money going up in smoke. That money could be better used anywhere else besides MLM, regardless of how we look at it from individual household to the entire global economy. In a time when our economy has needed that money the most, it is instead being turned into family destruction and shady bank accounts.

But perhaps even worse, MLM wrecks potential entrepreneurs. Regardless if you are a Socialist or a Libertarian, everyone agrees small business is a good thing and the primary source of employment. Everyone who falls for an MLM was enticed by the idea of being an entrepreneur. Once in the MLM they are not going to have the resources they need to start a real small business, and once they get out their heads will then be filled with bad business advice from MLM and self-doubt.

It seems to me that we have here a crisis of education. If we as a civilization value business so much, how come enough business topics aren't covered in basic GED-level education to prevent someone for falling for a scam so obvious as an MLM? The best K-12 program for teaching business right now is not-nothing, but it is an optional after-school club:

So injecting enough business education into basic education to be able to put together a decent business plan is probably not realistic. But in our world of barrages of scam phone calls and shady e-mail offers, we should provide some kind of education to prevent harm from scammery. There are lots of scams out there similar to MLM like other ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes and exist schemes, as well as tons of MLM adjacent scams like fake business gurus, motivational speakers posing as business experts, etc. 

But I doubt we are going to see this kind of education reform any time soon. So then my question is what is the best way the anti-MLM community can educate the general public about scammery? One is a board game called "Boss Babe The Game" which does us the favor of focusing on the problem of MLM generally and related issues around market saturation key to understanding pyramid and Ponzi schemes in general:

There have been some good documentaries on MLM, including Betting On Zero about Herbalife and LuLaRich about LuLaRoe. There is a hilarious fake MLM group on facebook that is great for showing the problems with MLM through humor. There's also now a wealth of good anti-MLM information on YouTube. All of these things are going in the right direction.