Mr Opendra's article rightly said "there is no magical way to generate money other than hard work and wise use of it". He couldn’t have put it better. Hard working people are rich. Even Thieves and corrupt Govt officials have to work hard to earn real money. No money comes easy. You need to work hard and know ways and means to skim money off the public money in ingenious ways.

Even bribery takes a lot of hard and smart work. There are honest hard workers too. They too get rich. They get richer nowadays.. A good hard working MNC executive earns quite a Packet. So Mr Opendra wrote well. But, no offence meant, I don’t agree with most of the other things he wrote. My personal view though.

Someone once asked me the same thing.. Is Amway doing any good? Isn’t Amway ruining the economy of Manipur.. Isn’t it a drain on our economy. Well I said it’s a boon to the Manipur Economy.

Strange eh! Is it because, all the money goes to the USA. Well how about the Moreh goods.. Do we use anything Manipuri, leave aside Indian. And we are still a part of India. We still use the Rupee. We don’t have a separate economy. If we did we would crumble. Lest not get into it now.

Since we have very less produce anyway, lets not talk about imports for now. All trucks go out from Manipur empty and came in full for that matter. Amway is too small compared to the Moreh trade that takes place. And the Moreh trade actually does wonders to our economy. Again it’s a different topic.

Lets talk about why Amway is a boon. Mr Opendra wrote about hierarchy and the chain, in other words the Multi Level hierarchy. The ones at the Top earn at the expense of the bottom feeders. It is not the one at the top but the one who works hardest and smartest who gets the money at the expense of those who only saw the easy money but refuse to work towards it. So again, hard work pays.

Some one at the top who doesn’t nurture his downstream will be OUT. In a state where there is no industry, and no jobs Amway’s offered opportunity to thousands.. Lets not talk about how many Rupees got drained out of Manipur, lest talk about how many people made a living out of it. Everybody has equal chance of becoming successful. It is a very democratic business. Only those who work hard, who have perseverance survive.

Lets have some respect for them, who works so hard. All the successful Amway guys I know work like crazy. In a land where no other industry could enter, Amway came in unnoticed and touched the lives of many.

About the high cost of the products, let those who can afford it use it. I for one use only Amway Toothpaste. The price they charge is well worth the quality. As long as there are people who can afford it why stop them. Also, Amway products are usually bought and used regularly by the Rich class.

And Most of the rich class of Manipur haven’t earned money the honest way. So in a way, its a good way to circulate back the black money into the economy and feeding a lot of hard working Amway guys in the process. Let the consumers use it and in the process create some jobs for the intermediaries which otherwise wouldn’t have been there.

If the same argument is extrapolated to all the other industries, why have TV, Fridges, Mobiles, and anything thing that drains Manipur’s economy. Should we forget that at least it creates some jobs in all those retail outlets.. or should we say that only the Shop owners are skimming the consumers.

Can anybody imagine how many jobs will be created if Airtel were to start their service tomorrow.. Should we forget the Jobs that went away with Sahara and Bata. No open commercial transaction is detrimental to a state’s economy. For God’s sake, even a communist country like China is embracing the Free market economy.. Let the Consumer decide..

PS: But my dear friends who wants to join Amway. Don't do it if you are not ready to sweat it out. Mr Opendra rightly said "there is no magical way to generate money other than hard work and wise use of it".

To read Opendro's article, click here .

Here is the reply from Opendro:

I appreciate Anothony's interest and elaborate analysis on amway and other business. I have intentionally omitted about the money drains through Moreh town and Mao trucks, because we know to some extent that we are exchanging our money with some substance.

Anthony has elaborated more on the products sold by Amway. If I had known that Amway is more about multi-level marketing, I wouldn't have targetted Amway at all in my article. I knew that they were also talking about a few products at discounts. My article has not tried to target at the product they are selling. People may or may not buy, that is not my concern. Even though I have raised my concern about the kind of product or the range of variety of products they are offering, that was not the primary target.

My first encounter and further investigation when I wronte the article were never about products. They were mostly about membership fee and ensured returns through more membership enrolment under his name. Marketing the products was not the primary aim. If marketing was the primary aim, every wise member of Amway would have tried to pull in all his/her unemployed members and relatives into the Amway business which was very open. It was not like that. The catch was "getting huge pay at less investment". This blinded a lot of people and late in realization. In short no wise member of Amway would like to earn money from marketing the product they are offering. They would rather earn money through more enrolment fees from members down the heirarchy.. If I'm wrong in this, I'm probably wrong in my understanding of the Amway business. And also I'm yet to hear anybody who has made money through Amway by selling products.

However, I'm not wrong in my understanding of the mail order or smart money, which I talked in the same article. They don't have anything to sell. They just have to pay initial membership fee and then collect more members under his referral scheme. They thus earn money. There is no intellectual or substantial product involved. It is clearly like a bank in the sense that it earns money using others money. But bank does not depend on new enrolments to pay the interest to the customer. Smart money or mail order neither pays interest nor return principal, but it pays a share of new enrolment fees under one's name. This is very very unethical.

We must make some difference between pulling in money using marketing tactics and pulling in money using traps, wherein one does not have a retreat, but trap more in the net.

# Opendro