Amway: Company or Cult? Answer to Last Week’s Question: While circumstances surrounding Brownie Wise’s removal from Tupperware are unclear, there seems to have been some trouble with her bookkeeping and finances that lead to irreconcilable differences between her and Earl Tupper, the owner of Tupperware. Unfortunately for her, Wise had no official contract with Tupperware. A soon as a year after her termination other company employees either didn’t know who she was or hadn’t heard from her in months. It was almost as if she had been erased from the collective memory of Tupperware. Creepy.
In several follow up questions to last week’s activities involving the Tupperware documentary, the Amway Company was mentioned. Upon further research it can be seen that Amway’s advertising, sales methods, and organization closely resemble that of Tupperware. There was also a strong opinion within the research I found that Amway and its employees resemble a cult organization, also similar to Tupperware. Amway’s followers certainly resemble religious zealots in some senses, as they are devoted to their company, its products, and the promise of a comfortable retirement to their core, attending seminars and conferences mirroring religious revivals, where the only difference is the absence of any divinity or religious code except the company values. More successful members of Amway get to present their stories of finding wealth through Amway at these seminars, bearing an uncanny resemblance to a testimony from a converted individual. Still, some of these connections are more transparent than others, and Amway could possibly be just another company that attempts to instill the corporate values of loyalty and trust to their employees through these team building group activities. However, the connections are there, and, as cult techniques have proven to be very effective unifiers in the past, I would not put it beyond Amway to try some of them out. Again, these techniques aren’t necessarily negative until a company takes them too far.
Question: What are the products that Amway sells?
No comments:
Post a Comment