Today we're going to revisit Orrin Woodward's extensive article on Scams, Coercion, And Network Marketing. As a system engineer Orrin never commits to anything without having all the details understood; this article reflects that attention to detail. His involvement with networking had to also satisfy his moral standards and it's apparent he did his due diligence. Read and enjoy the detail of his research!
God Bless!
Capt. Bill
Scams, Coercion, & Networking
Part 1
This video describes me as a senior engineer at GM, working my way up the corporate ladder only to find it was leaning against the wrong wall. So glad I fell into Networking, Free Enterprise and Win-Win principles! Freedom is a leadership choice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNI--ULZ-dM&feature=player_embedded&noredirect=1
I have spent the last several years studying the scams, schemes, and cons perpetrated on the American masses through the use of coercion. As a Top 10 Leadership Guru, I cannot sit by idly and watch Americans lose their freedoms without speaking up. No scam can last unless backed by a monopoly of force/coercion. Government is the only true monopoly of force available in any society. Coercion requires force, which involves either government intervention or mafia type tactics. Free enterprise businesses, like Network Marketing, cannot be a scam, since people are free to come and free to go, they will simply leave and the scam will collapse. Government scams like social security, income taxes, and fiat money inflation, to name just a few, take advantage of the masses, since the masses are forced to participate against their will, whether their needs are being met or not. Learning and defending American freedoms, against the encroachment of coercive government interventions, has become a key educational plank in my readings, writings and speeches of late.
Scams coerce participation
If someone attempts a scam, without the power of coercion, it will not last. For example, if someone attempted to sell a property for twice the market rate, perhaps a clueless customer would fall for it, but it couldn’t last as the market will quickly identify the offending party and avoid any business dealing with him. But who can avoid business dealings with an all pervasive government? Who can opt out of social security? Who can opt out of excessive taxes? Who can opt out of the government’s fiat money? Scams require force to continue the scheme over the long term. I have spent years of my life, studying and calling out scams to help educate Americans on the work cut out for us to eliminate the government supported scams through the American system of representative government.
In fact, Murray Rothbard, the late Dean of the Austrian School of Economics, the economics school with the best track record in predicting the effects of government intervention in free economies, stated:
But, above all, the crucial monopoly is the State’s control of the use of violence: of the police and armed services, and of the courts—the locus of ultimate decision-making power in disputes over crimes and contracts. Control of the police and the army is particularly important in enforcing and assuring all of the State’s other powers, including the all-important power to extract its revenue by coercion.
For there is one crucially important power inherent in the nature of the State apparatus. All other persons and groups in society (except for acknowledged and sporadic criminals such as thieves and bank robbers) obtain their income voluntarily: either by selling goods and services to the consuming public, or by voluntary gift (e.g., membership in a club or association, bequest, or inheritance). Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion, by threatening dire penalties should the income not be forthcoming. That coercion is known as “taxation,” although in less regularized epochs it was often known as “tribute.” Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State’s inhabitants, or subjects.
Many will call Network Marketing a scam, but unless backed by government coercion, meaning people are not free to leave, Networking cannot be a scam. On the contrary, Networking is the purest example of free enterprise left in the Western world. People win or lost on their efforts, not government protection of the profession. Wherever you see someone producing long term sustainable results in Networking, you know that a leader is building a winning culture that works. Networking has been around for well over sixty years, and scams cannot last that long unless backed by some form of government coercion. In Networking, some will win, and some will lose, but that simply defines life, not a scam.
Gabriel Kolko, a New Left leaning historian, described why the US government intervened with business at the turn of the 20th century, "Ironically, contrary to the consensus of historians, it was not the existence of monopoly that caused the federal government to intervene in the economy, but the lack of it."
Big Businesses built huge Trust in each field, in an attempt to control market prices, squeezing extra profits from consumers in the scam, but it didn't work. Big Business (Morgan, Rockefellers, etc), ended up running to Big Government, using government's monopoly of force to regulate industries and create extra profits for themselves. This is a scam on every consumer in every field affected and why I cannot remain quiet.
I love my business relationship with Dallin Larsen and MonaVie, and I have friends in many other Networking companies. What I enjoy about our profession is the right for any company to create a better business model and compete in free enterprise. There are no huge Trusts in Networking. Let the best company and community win period, without the aid of government to stack the deck in Big Businesses favor. There are many great companies and leaders in Networking and the more we lift one another, the more the Networking tide rises for all in our profession. I don’t have to attack another enterprise in order to build my own. If you really believe in your Networking business, just build it, allowing your actions to speak louder than your words. Leaders will flock from around the world if you have truly created a better business model. Any business that has been successful over the years, if not the decades, must be serving their customers in order to survive in a true free enterprise model.
Orrin Woodward
