Kant and MLMs

Immanuel Kant. Credit: Wikipedia.

A quick note this time. Immanuel Kant noted that it is immoral to use people as mere means to an end. For example, murder is wrong since you use the person you kill merely as a means to whatever end you wish to achieve by their death (say, getting away from a crime scene, eliminating a witness, etc.)

Can you think of any business where "we are using you merely as a means to an end" is more true than in an MLM? Not only does nobody care about what happens to those in the "downline" (so long as they keep promoting the upline's goal of making money), but their training material actively encourages you to exploit friendships and personal relationships to get the person in your downline -- that is, to actively turn relationships based on caring to one based on exploitation.