Today’s times has an article that at first blush is about the top 25 internet retailers and how some of them might surprise you – e.g. Dell is #1 and TicketMaster is #2. The majority of the article is about Amway’s success with thier Quixtar subsidiary. Apparently the article’s author was unable to type Quixtar into their search engine since with a little effort they would have quickly found the sites in the web that point out that Amway/Quixtar is right on the razor edge of being a commerical cult.

These MLM (Multi-Level-Marketing) organizations are great frameworks for abusive organizations. The root of the tree can delegate liablity, offensive labor management practices to the leaves of the tree, while collecting fees via upfront fees for sales materials.