Overworked, Alienated, and Externalized: Multi-Level Marketing Distributors in the Neoliberal Age

Abstract

The MLM (Multi-level marketing organization) is a logical outgrowth of the capitalist accumulation imperative as well as a neoliberal institution. MLMs are able to push typical retail overhead costs onto individual distributors, who are expected to act as buyers, inventory holders, retailers, self-managers, recruiters, job trainers, and exert disciplinary control over their distributor lines. All of the individual distributor’s relationships transform into potential transactional exchanges, thereby amplifying the alienation already endemic to capitalism. This research examines the MLM as an interactively reinforcing institution of Neoliberalism, the ideological operant of this current phase of capitalism.