9 ms·
Mormonism and Multilevel Marketing Companies
- aj7 6y agoThis is common knowledge in the U.S. Of more interest to us is “Mormonism and Intel Corporation.”
- tyingq 6y agoThey don't say it explicitly in the summary, but there's obvious power structures in play as well...real pressure to participate. I remember once getting a haircut, and the barber starting to pitch me an MLM holistic health thing in the middle of the haircut. Tried my best to say no in the politest way.
- al2o3cr 6y agoTurns out the people who'll believe a 19th-century conman's story about reading magic plates from a magic bag using a magic rock are likely to believe other pitches.
- tzs 6y agoYou should watch the South Park episode "All About Mormons". Be sure to watch all the way to the end. (Hint: after thoroughly ripping on Mormons for almost the whole episode, almost as effectively as they ripped on Scientology and Tom Cruise in the earlier episode "Trapped in the Closet", the episode takes a 90 degree turn and ends up being essentially a rebuttal to your comment).
- jawns 6y agoDid you mean to say 180 degree turn?
- tzs 6y agoNope. The end left all the ripping on Mormon origins and founding beliefs they had done throughout the episode intact. A 180 turn would be something that flipped that. The turn at the end was saying that all that doesn’t matter. They went off perpendicular to where they had been going, not opposite of where they had been heading.
- derefr 6y agoIn my experience, people who end up as [insert niche religion] because they grow up hearing such stories before they form the faculties to doubt them, aren't necessarily gullible people. They just have cached beliefs, and haven't had cause to prioritize rooting around getting rid of those cached beliefs. (When the cached beliefs don't actually make any predictions that would cause someone to change their behavior, they don't really tend to come into opposition.) But yes, if you're the sort of person who consciously joins a niche religion in adulthood, you're probably the same sort of person who will believe other pitches.
- lcall 6y agoFWIW, I'm (very gratefully) a member of the Church being mentioned here (more in my profile link, no product sales or JS at my simple site, but I explain why I am a believer in some I hope skimmable detail), and I have precisely 0.00 interest in MLMs. Edit: A few times in my life someone has given me a pitch, someone I knew, but it never seemed to use "position" as leverage, and there are policies against such things I've heard announced at various times, like an ongoing policy against using membership lists for marketing, buildings for business ventures, etc. But it's not surprising that if someone joins such a business they are asked to pitch to those they know.
- AnHonestComment 6y agoI think your comment undervalues religion as social technology by focusing on literal interpretation of myths.
- tyingq 6y agoTo me, it's not inherently more outlandish than stories associated with any other popular religion.
- ragnese 6y agoAgreed. However, that's not exactly exonerating Mormonism or other popular religions...
- tyingq 6y agoNo, but it doesn't mean they aren't intelligent either. Being surrounded for a long time, by people of a certain thinking has a strong effect. Regardless of how smart you are. Theranos investors, for example.
- cornstalks 6y ago> magic plates I'm not aware of any mystical properties ascribed to the plates. They're just ordinary plates of gold. > from a magic bag I'm not aware of any bag, especially one with mystical properties. Joseph says the plates were retrieved from an ordinary stone box buried in an ordinary hill, not a "magic" bag. You're welcome to be critical, but this is just disingenuous.
- pmdulaney 6y agoI am an Evangelical Christian. If a non-Christian were to say to me something about "The Immaculate Conception", I think it would be a tad disingenuous to just say, "We don't believe in any Immaculate Conception!" It would be more forthcoming to say, "Well, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is a Roman Catholic doctrine that asserts that Mary was born without sin; we Evangelicals don't believe that. We do, however, believe that Jesus Christ was born without sin." Likewise, I think you would be more forthcoming in admitting that while LDS does not believe there are any "mystical properties" ascribed to the plates, there were indeed "mystical properties" ascribed to the glasses, the Urim and Thummim, used by Joseph Smith to translate them.
- cornstalks 6y agoThe parent comment mentioned "magic plates", "magic bag", and "magic rock". I specifically called out the "magic plates" and "magic bag" as disingenuous and intentionally didn't rebut "magic rock" because I didn't think that one was necessarily disingenuous. But now that other people have flagged the comment it's not obvious what I selectively replied to.
- pmdulaney 6y agoFair enough. I was not able to read the original comment.
- Osiris 6y agoHow is insulting an entire population of people because of their beliefs a tolerated attitude? I don't see how it's any different than people that are anti-LGBT or racist. You may disagree but insults are not constructive and honestly, quite offensive.
- skosch 6y agoInsulting people is a bad idea in general, but there is an obvious difference between religion on one hand and sexual orientation/race on the other: you can choose (and change) the former but not the latter.
- jawns 6y agoI've heard this "you can choose one but not the other" argument for years, and it reveals some incorrect assumptions about religious beliefs. Ask religious believers (or non-believers) if they can just up and choose the reverse. They can't, at least not while remaining true to themselves, which is the same threshold that is used when celebrating a person's coming out. You might counter that religious beliefs shift more easily than sexual orientation. The prevailing narrative used to be that sexual orientation is totally static. It was useful and effective to frame things this way in the fight for gay rights; it asked, "Why punish someone for something they can't control?" But now that we're at a point in history where every brand under the sun is comfortable running Pride marketing campaigns, what was once an open secret is now more out in the open. LGBT folks have become more comfortable acknowledging that there is indeed fluidity and spectrum when it comes to sexual preferences, orientation, and gender identity. That doesn't mean that a person's orientation can be forcibly changed, but there is an acknowledgement that preferences can sometimes change organically, and we see that with religion as well.
- skosch 6y agoYou're right, changing one's worldview is difficult, and we certainly shouldn't force anyone to endorse views they don't hold. That said, hitching one's identity to unfalsifiable beliefs ("there is nothing science can't understand", "this book is the word of god", etc.) is immature and stunting. It's human nature, but that doesn't make it worthy of respect or celebration. We should strive to get comfortable with the frightening uncertainty in our mental models of the world. Therefore, insulting religion or irreligion isn't inherently problematic in my book. (Coincidentally, offending people is a terrible way of encouraging them to be more open-minded, but that's a different question.)
- dang 6y agoReligious flamewar will get you banned here. No more of this please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you've been breaking the site guidelines by repeatedly posting unsubstantive, snarky comments. We've asked you multiple times to stop. Please fix this.
- themodelplumber 6y agoData point: I once went to an "employment presentation" by a member of local Mormon leadership, when I lived in PDX. The meeting was held at his large and rather conspicuous residence. The event had been pitched to church members. It turned out to be a presentation on a health products MLM with some crazy amount of buy-in required up front. The presenter had a huge amount of the social capital that the research talks about. He was very charismatic in addition to holding the religious rank, so to speak. Also relevant to another article on the front page, his wife walked in mid-presentation to show us the MLM pills she was taking to fight cancer. I was very angry to realize that the meeting was MLM related. Meanwhile the local employment center run by the same church was staffed by a member of the boards of several high-profile fast food chains (you'd know them), and he basically showed us that there was a fax machine and computer we could use. He was a nice guy but this was very frustrating in comparison to the comparatively warm and attentive MLM pitch.
- draw_down 6y agoMeanwhile, they will use efforts like the “employment center” as a rhetorical shield, as evidence the church gives back to the community. Look, we help people get jobs!
- double0jimb0 6y agoAlso industries that require the ability to relentlessly “sell, sell, sell”. Many political advertising and online DTC mattresses companies (to name a couple) are based Utah.
- invalidOrTaken 6y agoIt is one of our weaknesses as a people, honestly. I love my church, but we have a go-getter culture that often conflates hard work (and sales is hard work, just not necessarily good hard work) with virtue. We tend to do well in corporate culture---which says good things about corporate culture, and bad things about us.
- Guy2020 6y agoIs there a way to read the full paper? Seems like a fascinating read. ( not sure what it has to do with tech though )
- sicromoft 6y agoYou can read the full paper here: https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-institutional-economics/article/institutions-the-social-capital-structure-and-multilevel-marketing-companies/D9F67620E7B64D6B473A348C0C2273FA# https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/j...
- d0lphin 6y agoThanks! It actually ended up being pretty interesting.
- cornstalks 6y agoI don't have access to the paper so I can't comment on its entirety, but the abstract is spot on in my personal experience. One thing not mentioned in the abstract (but perhaps it's mentioned in the paper) is how many missionaries do door-to-door sales when the return home. Many don't, but a nontrivial number do. I suspect that that missionaries play a role in the popularity of MLMs: either because of former missionaries joining MLMs (because some missionary skillsets are applicable to MLM marketing/selling), or because a nontrivial number of people in Utah have a soft spot for missionaries and I think MLMs often exploit that same soft spot.
- dorian-graph 6y agoI would have some doubts about this because the LDS members who go on missions are predominantly male and from what I'm aware of, those members involved in MLM are predominantly female. There has been a large increase in the number of female members serving missions since a few years ago though, but has MLM already been popular since before that? These are verifiable things though, if you have the data. There is a large amount of male returned missionaries who do stints at a handful of companies (e.g. some solar one) who do door-to-door sales though, and can leverage their former experience.
- anonAndOn 6y agoI'd imagine going door to door offering X% savings on your monthly electric bill is so much easier than pitching the Native Americans are actually just a 3000 year old lost tribe of Israel. [0] [0]https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/places/related-articles/mormon-scripture-and-the-lost-tribes-of-israel.aspx https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/places/related-articles/morm...
- sjansen 6y agoScanning the paper, it looks like it does discuss the impact of prior missionary experience on MLM growth. Having seen it first hand, the relationship between pausing college for a couple of year to go door to door discussing religion, followed by returning to college and paying for it by going door to door selling security systems, solar panels, kitchen knives, etc. has always been obvious. Don't get the wrong impressions. Only a minority of returned missionaries go into sales. And most quickly become disillusioned because it's harder to stay dedicated to flogging a mediocre kitchen knife. But it only takes a fraction of a fraction of the population.
- cookiecaper 6y agoI've got to commend the OP here for having the guts to title this appropriately whereas Cambridge titled it "Institutions, the social capital structure, and multilevel marketing companies" when the abstract states that they explicitly (exclusively?) focus on MLMs in relation to Utah/Mormonism.
- travisgriggs 6y agoWouldn't it even be better to have titled it "Utah Mormonism and Multilevel Marketing Companies" then? As a Washingtonian Mormon, the social system is different out of Utah than in. And again a change as you move out of the northwest to areas where there are less adherents again.
- drewmate 6y agoThe cultural aspects of Mormonism are muted out of state, but even out-of-state Mormons are inextricably tied to the Utah (University, relatives, friends who moved from or to Utah). I've hit all four quadrants of the Mormon/Non-Mormon, Utahn/Non-Utahn matrix and from my perspective, we still shared much of the Utah culture (though I never would have admitted it at the time) when I grew up in another state.
- pottertheotter 6y agoI think this is an academic thing. The authors are studying the topics in the title, and doing so by examining the LDS Church as a good example of where there is high social capital structure in the institution.
- WhompingWindows 6y agoReligion and MLM go hand in hand, that's interesting. I will push the concept further: Are religions another form of MLM? In both cases, we are trading our time, effort, and money for status within a community; there are hierarchical ranks, obtained by recruiting more people and proselytizing effectively...and MLMs and religion both seek to answer tough questions, whether that be creation or health, salvation or financial freedom. And both MLMs and religion rely upon false premises, mythology, peer pressure, and irrational fears. Lastly, If MLMs or religion had extremely solid evidence behind them, would they truly be MLMs or religion? This seems the most important linkage, these institutions (and many others) prey upon inherent weaknesses in the human psyche for their own advancement. Downvote brigade has arrived, I love receiving downvotes for playing devil's advocate; respond to me if you're disagreeing, don't downvote and bury what you dislike.
- cagenut 6y agoI didn't downvote, but I suspect you ran into two things here: #1 yea duh, there's a lot in common. it comes off as "iamverysmart" #2 imho you have the order backwards. MLM is what happens when the profit motive, "consumer capitalism" and hustle-entrepreneur culture gets mapped onto religious communities/social-structures. Other religions arent a form of MLM, MLM is a new form of religion.
- virtuous_signal 6y agoMormons are a vanishingly small percentage of all religious people. You asserted that MLMs are correlated with religion (with no qualifiers), and instead of backing up that assumption with data, you went right into sociologically theorizing of why it might be true. With even more unsubstantiated claims about religion. No downvotes from me, just pointing out flaws.
- jariel 6y ago" we are trading our time, effort, and money for status within a community; there are hierarchical ranks, obtained by recruiting more people and proselytizing effectively...and MLMs and religion both seek to answer tough questions, whether that be creation or health, salvation or financial freedom. And both MLMs and religion rely upon false premises, mythology, peer pressure, and irrational fears." Or is this the University system?
- prpl 6y agoIt’s not purely based on religious structure and institution, it’s also a convenient “side hustle” for large families (though that’s a religious consequence), especially with the common stay-at-home mom in Utah - Utah county in particular.
- sjansen 6y agoI grew up outside Utah, but have lived here now for 20 years. To me, the abstract reads like "water is wet". Both true and obvious to anyone experiencing it. Because I'm not willing to willing to pay for the actual paper, I don't know if it contains any inaccuracies or misunderstandings—there often are when describing Utah's peculiar culture—but scanning the citations it appears very well researched. While MLMs are unreasonably successful in Utah, don't get the wrong idea. In my experience, the majority of Utahns dislike them just as much as everyone else. It's just easier for MLMs starting in Utah to target the willing minority and expand globally. Update: Having read the paper thanks to the free links in the comments, I can say it's pretty accurate. The description of Church programs is a bit idealized compared to messy reality, but that's to be expected. I really only disagree with one statement: > In addition to the social capital and cultural explanations, legal institutions may also be contributing to the prevalence of MLMs in Utah. It's a generous statement, but as a local I believe the opposite to be true. The prevalence of MLMs has co-opted legal institutions resulting in more friendly laws.
- jawns 6y agoYou are going to find this effect in any strong community where social capital is present and influential. There's nothing specific to Utah's LDS community that leads to MLM peddling/participation. It's just that this community is one type of community where social capital plays a large role. By the way, tech communities are not immune to it. It might not be MLM, but think about how frequently you encounter tech products and services that seem to be flying on nothing but hype and charisma.
- Simulacra 6y agoAgreed. You may find the documentary Betting on Zero, and how Herbalife gets into communities.
- zozbot234 6y agoYup, from the abstract: "Successful MLMs require a social capital structure where members can access and mobilize both strong and weak social ties. ... The LDS Church's institutions foster a social capital structure where (almost all) members have access to and can leverage social capital in all its forms. LDS institutions encourage members to make meaningful social connections characterized by trust and reciprocity with other church members in local neighborhoods and across the world." This is the point of this article; not so much MLM itself, but how even something "weird" like MLM can be a relevant indicator wrt. the strength of social ties. Social capital is a very good thing indeed; it is the foundation of a truly inclusive society where people are not going to be marginalized and neglected in their most pressing needs, regardless of outside factors like income, class or socio-economic status. And we know of very few ways of sustainably fostering this kind of grassroots social capital, other than community-based groups, often based on some sort of established tradition or religion.
- drewmate 6y agoIt seems that social capital provides a fertile field for MLMs, but there are other cultural factors that contribute. For example, the tradition of missions trains a charismatic workforce used to selling and being rejected. And traditional family roles lead to a large group of women outside of the labor force looking for a way to help support their families.
- jopolous 6y agoI live in Utah, can confirm this is a huge thing here. Fortunately (I say fortunately because I hate MLMs) the leaders of the dominant religion here have been pretty vocal about being a little smarter with "shady investments", and I think some of them are trying to allude to MLMs. Hopefully they just say it outright some day
- Osiris 6y agoI also see that this seems more specific to the culture of Utah than of the Mormon religion as you don't see this same behavior in other places with large Mormon populations such as Mexico or Brazil.
- MattGaiser 6y agoDo Mexico and Brazil have a lot of MLMs yet?
- base698 6y ago"Under the Banner of Heaven" explains this effect a bit. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CZCGPUA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CZCGPUA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
- umvi 6y agoThis is recognized and lampooned even from within the LDS community. For example, in the LDS film "the RM", the main character's parents are running a ridiculous MLM scheme called "LD3" (Latter Day Discount Distributors).
- pottertheotter 6y agoAbsolutely. I'm LDS and myself, my family, and my friends that are LDS abhor MLMs. But I guess I self-select into a lot of that group.
- dgellow 6y agoThat’s interesting in the context of this other post also submitted to HN: “How Mormons Built the Next Silicon Valley While No One Was Looking” Direct link: https://marker.medium.com/how-mormons-built-the-next-silicon-valley-while-no-one-was-looking-c50add577478 https://marker.medium.com/how-mormons-built-the-next-silicon... HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23882224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23882224
- weeksie 6y agoPasses the sniff test. I spent a good deal of time in SLC when I was 18/19. This was the 90s and I remember even back then that almost all of the classified job ads were setups to entice you into a MLM presentation.
- gigatexal 6y agoYou can be Mormon and also not engage in MLM. Nothing about being Mormon means you have to be stupid enough to fall for such scams.
- johnohara 6y agoMy uncle was raised LDS. When you lapse from the faith but remain friendly and on good terms with active members you are considered a "Jack Mormon," which he classified himself. Coffee is a prohibited food for active members which is why he would occasionally send me a pound of Jack Mormon Coffee on my birthday. https://jackmormoncoffee.com/ https://jackmormoncoffee.com/ Great guy, gracious, engaging, and always liked to laugh.
- lihaciudaniel 6y agoMormonism is evil in itself for teaching false things like the discovery of America 2500 years ago
- jtr1 6y agoI'm unable to open this without permission, but I'm curious about the extent to which they interrogate the combination of rigid gender roles and wage stagnation. I'm not mormon, but grew up in an evangelical christian community that held many similar cultural ideals, especially the importance of maintaining a "traditional" nuclear family, where the father is expected to be the primary breadwinner and the mother is expected to play the role of homemaker and often home educator. I'd speculate that a big factor in its adoption is that it's an income supplemental that allows you to continue childcare or homeschooling.
- bluedino 6y agoHerbalife is very popular in Hispanic church communities in Chicago, Texas, etc. John Oliver did a story on how 60-80% of new members were Latino. https://www.latimes.com/business/la-xpm-2013-feb-15-la-fi-herbalife-latino-20130216-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/la-xpm-2013-feb-15-la-fi-he...
- bcatanzaro 6y agoStay-at-home moms are another big reason for this besides the missionary experience. It is very common for Utah Mormon women to stay at home raising children. The traditional full-time workplace totally disrespects that choice. SAHMs are not compensated for the hard work they do. It makes sense they would look for something part time to do to make a little money and think about something besides kids. But how can they do that in the traditional American workplace that expects 40+ hours a week and a resume with no gaps? Many MLMs are built for SAHMs. They build on SAHM social networks and many of them are explicitly about making domestic life more bearable (kitchen gadgets, home goods, clothes, beauty and health products). I think there’s a story here about SAHMs as a neglected overlooked and disrespected population, and how MLMs fill a need for them. BTW, I hate MLMs generally, I’m just pointing out that Mormon missionary service isn’t the only thing attracting MLMs to Utah.
- dgut 6y agoIs there any region of the world that respects SAHM besides Scandinavian countries? I feel like this is one of the most important issues we're facing today. Separating kids from their parents for most of the day after three months can't possibly be good.
- humaniania 6y agoDepends on the quality of the average parenting skills.
- throwawaygh 6y agoNot just skills, but also buy-in. My mother was a SAHM by social convention, but it's not what she wanted for her life. She was miserable and it effected our lives deeply. She went back to work full-time (making more than my father even after >10 years out of the labor force). My younger siblings went to a well-run up-scale daycare with professionals who were passionate about child development and had none of the self-loathing/depression of a reluctant SAHM. Suffice it to say: I need therapy and my siblings don't. I think the social value of the SAHM is vastly over-estimated. It's basically a "good old days" lemonade and football fallacy.
- tomrod 6y agoExmormon and former missionary here. Pretty much, makes sense. And that's all that I can charitably contribute to the conversation, IMO.
- acjohnson55 6y agoI know very little about life in Utah, but it seems to me that MLMs provide a way to monetize social capital, for those who wield it. It's well known that many MLMs do an insignificant amount of sales outside of the org, and mostly serve as a pyramid scheme, where earlier players are compensated by the startup costs of later players. Most players will never recoup their startup investment by recruiting or external sales. It strikes me that the mid-level players who make it to profitability probably have enough skills that they would make far more money in something closer to a regular corporate or sales environment. If handy work and piece work were the original gig economy, and the app-driven gig economy is the modern incarnation, MLMs are the intermediate wave.
- ineedasername 6y agoTLDR: Mormanism is a very missionary-driven religion. Success in MLM's requires a similar missionary-style dynamic. Therefore Mormanism is fertile ground for MLM's.
- peter_d_sherman 6y ago>"In multilevel marketing companies (MLMs), member-distributors earn income from selling products and recruiting new members. Successful MLMs require a social capital structure where members can access and mobilize both strong and weak social ties. Utah has a disproportionate share of MLM companies located in the state and a disproportionate number of MLM participants. We argue that Utah's dominant religious institutions have led to the emergence of a social capital structure, making MLMs particularly viable. Utah is the most religiously homogeneous state; roughly half its population identifies as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The LDS Church's institutions foster a social capital structure where (almost all) members have access to and can leverage social capital in all its forms. LDS institutions encourage members to make meaningful social connections characterized by trust and reciprocity with other church members in local neighborhoods and across the world." I intuited this interesting relationship when I worked in Utah for an MLM in 2007-2008. But MLM's and LDS -- is not the end-all understanding of that relationship! You see, if you wanted the bigger picture, the larger understanding, you'd compare the above things with Corporate Hierarchies, Government Hierarchies (foreign and domestic), Social Hierarchies, Financial Hierarchies, and even such things as the hierarchies of Ancient Rome (probably the biggest MLM (and later in its history) Ponzi Scheme that ever existed(!), in that the earlier you were a settler, the more you were rewarded (earlier settlers and their descendant families became Rome's Patrician class, at the top of the social hierarchy), while latecomers to that party got increasingly smaller shares of land, property, privilege, etc. ("Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup" -- to quote the Mel Brooks film, "High Anxiety" <g>)) Also, you'd clearly define MLM Vs. Ponzi schemes -- they're basically the exact same thing, except that one has an underlying good, service, or something of value which is fairly exchanged, whereas in a Ponzi scheme, the underlying good, service or value either doesn't exist, or exists only in a partial, malformed state. (That is, the value exchange in transactions is asymmetric -- due to fraud of some sort...) But let's kick those understandings up a notch! Let's throw some gasoline on that fire! To this ecclectic mix, to really get an understanding, you'd throw on some Jordan Peterson, specifically what he says about Dominance Hierarchies in society! And then to season it, you'd add to this some Adam Smith, who can probably be said to be not only the guy that codified Capitalism, but could safely be said to have been the ultimate master of games relating to anything having to do with finance, but more broadly, with the broadest definition of capital. Basically what Sun Tsu was to War -- Adam Smith was to Capital, in its broadest definition. So, if you really wanted an understanding, you'd take all of these ecclectic ingredients, mix them all together, season, heat and serve! But this article is a great first step in that direction!
- rdiddly 6y agoWhere I thought they were headed was the somewhat more obvious conclusion that the church _is_ a MLM organization.
- HideousKojima 6y agoHow, exactly? Other than the highest leadership of the church (which is less than 200 people) that get a stipend, all of the leadership roles in the church involve a ton of volunteer labor.
- rdiddly 6y agoYeah I guess I was being flippant, sorry.
- coliveira 6y agoThis is a well noted connection between MLM and religious fundamentalism. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/2018/02/28/overlapping-venn-diagram-christianity-mlm/ https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/2018/02/28/ov...