
Mormonism and Multilevel Marketing Companies - cdepman
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-institutional-economics/article/institutions-the-social-capital-structure-and-multilevel-marketing-companies/D9F67620E7B64D6B473A348C0C2273FA#
======
bcatanzaro
Stay-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.

~~~
langitbiru
We should have part-time remote jobs (20 hours per week). Something like
maintaining WordPress website or designing mock-ups with Sketch. Too bad these
kind of jobs are rare.

~~~
zozbot234
> Too bad these kind of jobs are rare.

MTurk is basically this, so they're far from "rare". They're just not very
interesting for first-world workers.

~~~
ineedasername
A big part of why they're not interesting is because they generally pay a
small fraction of minimum wage. The median is about $2 an hour. So I don't
think MTurk serves as an adequate example of the type of job the op
referenced.

~~~
rrrrrrrrrrrryan
Much of the work done by stay at home moms pays less than minimum wage,
though: Etsy stores, clipping coupons / general penny pinching, these MLMs.

I do think that the main difference is that the mechanical Turk work is just
soul-crushingly boring.

~~~
ineedasername
Clipping coupons is soul crushingly boring as well. I also run an Etsy store
as a side activity and make about $25 per hour, 5-10 hours a week. Median for
all Etsy is still about minimum wage, which, again, is significantly better
than MTurk @ $2 an hour. And I'd argue the high volume low margin work for
Etsy stores looks every but as soul crushing.

------
jawns
You 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.

~~~
zozbot234
Yup, 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.

~~~
smogcutter
Eh, I’m not sure about separating class from social capital. In Bourdieu’s
framework (which tbf is dated), there are definitely haves and have-nots. The
way different forms of social capital are valued in different contexts is one
of the major ways that social hierarchies gatekeep and maintain themselves.

~~~
zozbot234
Even in Bourdieu's framework economic, cultural and symbolic capital might
well be more relevant to class distinction. That would seem to be the gist of
his work on distinction and the judgment of taste, at least. Social capital
plays a role in that it can be _downstream_ of the distinction created by
other dynamics, but not necessarily in "more" social capital throughout a
community leading to "more" distinction. If anything, one would expect the
opposite.

~~~
smogcutter
That’s fair. In retrospect I was thinking more of cultural capital (which I’ll
chalk up to how contemporary critiques of Bourdieu tend to conflate them).

------
themodelplumber
Data 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.

------
sicromoft
You can read the full paper here: [https://sci-
hub.tw/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/j...](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#)

~~~
d0lphin
Thanks! It actually ended up being pretty interesting.

------
cornstalks
I 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
I 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
I'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/morm...](https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/places/related-
articles/mormon-scripture-and-the-lost-tribes-of-israel.aspx)

------
umvi
This 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
Absolutely. 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.

------
jopolous
I 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
I 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
Do Mexico and Brazil have a lot of MLMs yet?

------
dgellow
That’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...](https://marker.medium.com/how-mormons-built-the-next-silicon-
valley-while-no-one-was-looking-c50add577478)

HN post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23882224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23882224)

~~~
sva_
I've heard this phrase, that SLC is supposed to be the next Silicon Valley
quite a few times, but in all of those cases it was from people living in SLC
or around it.

~~~
umvi
"Silicon Slopes"

Qualtrics, Blendtec, LucidChart, Domo are all successful Silicon Slopes
startups

------
tyingq
They 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.

------
base698
"Under the Banner of Heaven" explains this effect a bit.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CZCGPUA/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CZCGPUA/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

------
sjansen
I 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.

------
prpl
It’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.

------
jtr1
I'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.

------
Guy2020
Is there a way to read the full paper? Seems like a fascinating read. ( not
sure what it has to do with tech though )

~~~
pinewurst
[https://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137420000284](https://sci-
hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137420000284)

~~~
Guy2020
Thanks!

------
acjohnson55
I 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.

------
weeksie
Passes 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.

------
double0jimb0
Also 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
It 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.

------
coliveira
This is a well noted connection between MLM and religious fundamentalism.

[https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/2018/02/28/ov...](https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/2018/02/28/overlapping-
venn-diagram-christianity-mlm/)

------
cookiecaper
I'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
Wouldn'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
The 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.

------
aj7
This is common knowledge in the U.S. Of more interest to us is “Mormonism and
Intel Corporation.”

------
ineedasername
TLDR: 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.

------
bluedino
Herbalife 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-
he...](https://www.latimes.com/business/la-xpm-2013-feb-15-la-fi-herbalife-
latino-20130216-story.html)

------
peter_d_sherman
>"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!

------
gigatexal
You 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.

------
tomrod
Exmormon and former missionary here. Pretty much, makes sense. And that's all
that I can charitably contribute to the conversation, IMO.

~~~
ngngngng
"How can you tell if someone is Vegan" applies pretty well here.

~~~
tomrod
Or exvegan.

------
johnohara
My 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.

------
WhompingWindows
Religion 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.

~~~
jawns
You're being downvoted, I assume, for breaking HN guidelines, specifically
around the accusation of brigading:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
WhompingWindows
I should have included the following characters "Edit:"...I was downvoted
multiple times before I even mentioned brigading. That was a post-hoc edit
after I'd been downvoted multiple times, I think I was at -2 within 1-2
minutes.

HN commenters simply downvote things they disagree with, even if it pushes the
narrative further and promotes more thought. IMO, downvotes should be reserved
for low-effort wastes of space comments, not dissenting viewpoints.

