In Little Bosses Everywhere, journalist Bridget Read pulls back the curtain on the hidden world of multilevel marketing (MLM), a system that has infiltrated American life through companies like Amway, Mary Kay, and Herbalife.
Promising financial freedom and independence, MLMs instead ensnare millions of people in cycles of debt and disappointment while enriching a powerful few.
With gripping detail, Read uncovers how these schemes masquerade as opportunities but often operate as pyramid structures where most participants lose money.
Far from a niche scam, MLMs are shown to be deeply tied to U.S. politics, religion, and capitalism itself, with figures from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump benefiting from their rise.
Read traces their growth from postwar California to today’s massive stadium conventions, weaving in stories of everyday Americans—mothers, veterans, and workers—whose lives were upended.
By exposing MLMs as both a financial trap and a political force, Little Bosses Everywhere reframes them as one of America’s most influential and destructive cultural exports.
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