was thinking the other day about how the franchise/MLM model is a metastization or evolution of the corporate model, in terms of liability avoidance.

• if, as some guy, you lie to your customers and sell them garbage telling them its gold, they can come after you directly and fuck you up for fraud.
• if, as the head of a corporation, you lie to your customers and sell them garbage telling them its gold, the corporation is convicted of fraud and your personal belongings are safe.
• if, as the head of an MLM/franchised organization, you train product ambassadors and franchisees to bullshit people in order to meet volume standards and purchase/re-sell your products as gold, your company can elide charges of fraud because it was the re-sellers fault, and they are their own independent little franchisees.

i don't think it's a coincidence that franchising and the "legal" MLM structure both came into their own in the US in the 1970s.

The real marketing genius in MLM schemes is how they tap into everyone hating work under capitalism and offer a secret exploit to becoming self-sufficent.

MLM schemes are genius, it's basically if you cut the C out of M-C-M' and just do the exploitation directly without the extra steps.