> Amway

Literally the last word of the sentence before the sentence you quoted stated the very specific company name.

Amway. Amway and all the clones.

In the US you can run a pyramid scheme as long as you have enough money and political influence to do it “legally”.

That's not true. A pyramid scheme, legally, has no product but itself. Those are illegal.

For example, pay me $20 to join my company and you get the right to recruit people for $20!

Amway is essentially exactly the same except they add a product to the mix to get around the law. They still primarily profit from the "employees" rather than customers.

Changing the definition of a pyramid scheme, for the proposes of law enforcement, to something more akin to "profits primarily off employees" is what needs to be done.

If you have model legislation handy, particularly the specific legal definition of scams like MLM, I'd be very grateful. Otherwise I'll poke around a bit, to see how UK phrased it.

> A pyramid scheme, legally, has no product but itself.

There are 0.0% of pyramid schemes with no product.

Because they are illegal. That's what the originals were though.

You pay some amount of money that gets you basically nothing (maybe a few pages of "how to recruit") and that's it.

MLM schemes are distinct in that they actually have a product and that's what makes them legal.