Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

As the coronavirus pandemic swept America in 2020, a few industries managed not only to weather the economic shock but actually prosper. Food-delivery apps, exercise bikes, and streaming services all profited handsomely, mostly because people were confined to their homes. Somehow, multilevel marketing companies did well too.

The Direct Selling Association, the national group representing companies that market products straight to consumers through independent sellers, reported a record-breaking $40.1 billion in sales in 2020. Except, as Bridget Read unravels in her new book Little Bosses Everywhere, that number is highly deceiving.

In the world of multilevel marketing (MLM) the only “sales” that are recorded are the purchases made by each seller, euphemistically described in the industry as consultants, distributors, or managers but never as employees. So even when products end up in someone’s basement or trashcan, that counts as a sale.

Read argues that what really happened in 2020 was not a growth in demand for vitamin shakes, makeup sets, or knives — it was a surge in desperate Americans tricked into thinking MLM was their golden ticket out of living paycheck to paycheck. The pyramid scam is bigger than ever before, and its influence has crept into nearly every part of the American economy.

MLM owes its start to Carl Rehnborg, an entrepreneur who tried........

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