Is Amway a cult?
Critics of Amway have compared it to a cult whose main product is Amway itself. Amway folk do resemble religious devotees in some respects. They have great faith in their company, its products, and the hope for wealth and early retirement. They attend seminars and meetings that are reminiscent of revivalist meetings, where the power of positive thinking replaces (or is accompanied by) faith in Jesus. Instead of a parade of souls healed by faith, Amway faithful are treated to testimonials of early retirement with plenty of money. While there have been some accusations of persecution of those who have left the flock, by and large Amway devotion seems harmless enough. Amway doesn't seem to differ much from other zealous big corporations which preach positive thinking about the business of business in endless motivation seminars and retreats, books, tapes, brochures, among other things (Klebniov).
Graham Baldwin of the United Kingdom compares an Amway motivational meeting to a revival or cult meeting. The former university chaplain tries to help people break away from religious cults with his program called "Catalyst." Soon after one of his broadcasts, he got a call from a man
who explained how the group he had joined a year earlier was slowly taking over his life. There were the huge monthly meetings at venues like Wembley Conference Centre where he and thousands of other followers were worked into a passionate frenzy then told to go out and find as many new recruits as possible; there was a powerful doctrine that frowned on television, newspapers and other 'negative' influences; there was the strict dress code and advice on how to bring up children and relate to loved ones; there was the fear that to quit would mean giving up hope of a happy future.
However, having seen the television show featuring Baldwin, the man now alleged that he was being subjected to mind control techniques and being manipulated by those above him. He wanted advice on making a possible break. Baldwin asked which cult the man was in.
"It's not a cult. It's not a religion. It's something called Amway" (Thompson).
To some of Amway's critics, Amway may look like a religious cult, but to others it just looks like a shell game. The ministers of the faith work their magic by constantly calling your attention to the quality of their products, their concern with ethics, the wealth of their company, their association with Coca-Cola or MCI, the claim that they don't have to pay the middleman or advertising costs, and the numerous testimonials of the faithful who have passed through the valley of death and have arrived on the mountaintop with buckets of gold. Meanwhile, you do not notice that the products are secondary to the process of recruiting new distributors of those products. You do not notice that the wealth and associations of the company are irrelevant to its promises of wealth to the millions of distributors recruited. You do not notice that many costs, such as mailing, handling, doing forms, advertising, and driving personal vehicles to deliver or pick up products, are picked up by the distributors themselves. You do not notice that even though some people make a decent or more than decent living exclusively through Amway, the chances of all or most distributors making such wealth are absurdly small. You do not notice that while the leaders talk about ethics they are stimulating resentment and greed. And of course you never hear the testimonials of those who feel cheated by Amway; dissidents are not allowed to give their testimony at revival meetings.
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http://skepdic.com/amway.html
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