Patriotism, free enterprise, & positive thinking
Mechling, Thomas B.
A CASE STUDY IH MARKETIM Q CONSERVATISM Patriotism, capitalism 7& positive thinking THOMAS B. MECHLING Jff ¦HiEGOLD DUST Twins of the New Conservatism" I are what they've been called: Jay Van...
...institution of right-to-work laws...
...The Religious Right's political agenda reads like the heritage of the John Birch Society wrapped in the pages of the bible: wholesale reduction in the federal government's role in providing social services...
...Third Century publishes two main books, "One Nation Under God," the political rationale for the Religious Right which equates scripture with its political platform, and " In the Spirit of"76," a handbook for winning elections: "The vision is to rebuild the foundations of the Republic as it was when first-founded—a 'Christian Republic' We must return to the faith of our fathers...
...President Gerald Ford...
...A CASE STUDY IH MARKETIM Q CONSERVATISM Patriotism, capitalism 7& positive thinking THOMAS B. MECHLING Jff ¦HiEGOLD DUST Twins of the New Conservatism" I are what they've been called: Jay Van Andel, 56 A and Richard DeVos, 34, chairman and president respectively of the Amway Corporation of Ada, Michigan, a company of a quarter-of-a-million, door-to-door salespersons now after twenty years of operation doing close to a billion dollars yearly in sales of personal products ranging from Vitamin A to drain cleaner to panty hose — making it one of the nation's most successful private firms...
...The free market is the biblical approach to economics...
...In the speeches by its leaders, pastors are being urged directly to personally endorse candidates, to invite Christian candidates deserving conservative support to preach or to offer prayers before their congregations, and to set up voting registration booths in their churches: "Christians should become precinct workers who are door-to-door evangelists/' The ideological and educational kits of the religious groups and their Third Century publishing arm are designed and are being used as "home study kits"—to get people studying in small groups, typically for six weeks...
...Socialism or Capitalism...
...Amway describes the results as "an excellent success in increasing teacher economic literacy...
...The free enterprise system is a manifestation of the Christian idea of stewardship...
...Backing up these visual classroom aids are printed teachers' and discussion-leaders' guides of suggested review questions and questions for discussion, such as: 1. Why do people in the United States supposedly take more pride in the tools of society than people in the Soviet Union...
...It further charged that Amway was guilty of price-fixing, restricting the activities of its sales distributors by preventing them from selling in retail stores, and misrepresenting the potential opportunities for their success...
...return to the gold standard: a balanced budget...
...Both co-owners and their other top executives share four corporate jets and a 119-foot yacht appropriately named "Enterprise...
...The welfare state is contrary to the bible...
...Thus, according to DeVos, who controls the tools has the key to productivity, progress and freedom anywhere in the world...
...and, secondly, the broader-based and better-known conservative groups which support them and their candidates and causes financially, namely: the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, the National Conservative Political Action Committee, the American Conservative Union Victory Fund, and the Public Service Political Action Committee, among others...
...past twenty years it has often been denounced as being a "quasi-religious socio-political organization...
...He promptly saw that ten million people got the message through an extensive direct-mail campaign...
...The free enterprise system," he concluded in his personally written book ("Believe!~In Free Enterprise"), "has outperformed, outproduced any other in the world___It is a gift of God to us, and we should understand it, embrace it and believe in-it...
...dismissed most of its allegations against Amway to focus on its prohibition against the company from fixing prices and requiring Amway to include accurate information about potential earnings when soliciting new sales people...
...The reasons, as AmTHOMAS B. MECHLING is a contributor to a number of publications including Washington Watch, Harper's, Harper's Weekly and Business & Society Review...
...The instrumentalities it works through are, first, the rightwing religious groups themselves: the Christian Embassy, the Christian Freedom Foundation ($25,000 personal DeVos contribution in 1974-75), the Campus Crusade for Christ, Third Century Publishers etal...
...Citizens must decide: Do they want the state to own the tools of production or the private business sector to own the tools — through capital investment in corporation stocks and bonds, banks and life insurance...
...Besides DeVos's own book, "Believel," the Institute distributes free or at low cost to other corporations and individuals, such books and booklets as Henry Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson" (discussing the hidden cost of public works), Henry Grady Weaver's "Mainspring of Human Progress" (tracing the development of free enterprise and why some societies advance beyond others),' 'The Incredible Bread Machine '' (how free enterprise and free markets offer solutions to current societal problems), "Alternatives" (a series of short articles suitable for pay-envelope stuffers or handouts), "Our Economic System" (reprints of Reader's Digest articles), and "Choice, an Activity Book for Teachers" (telling teachers how to incorporate economics into the classroom at every different grade and subject level...
...In the words of Richard Viguerie, the direct-mail genius of the New Right, whose millions of letters raise close to $50 million yearly for conservative candidates and causes, "The next real major area of growth for conservative ideology and political philosophy is among evangelical people...
...Mediocre or Excellent...
...Like Mobil Oil, Amway spends more of its advertising and PR budget trying to get its ideological views across than in selling its products...
...While the primaries were still under way, he had the further distinction of being the subject of a mini-boomlet for "a businessman darkhorse candidate for President of the United States'' launched at the suggestion of conservative commentator Paul Harvey...
...Get Government Out of the Business.," "Debunking the Inflation Myth...
...At the other end of the scale, Amway subsidizes a little newsletter that unfolds into a poster called the "Ada Report"—"published as a tribute to those American who live in Ada, Louisiana, Ada, Iowa . . . and all the other communities like Ada...
...4. How does the private ownership of society's tools make the free enterprise system more productive than the socialist system...
...The De\os-et-al,-inspired step was merely to organize on the national level and to raise the necessary funds through personal contacts and private meetings with key business leaders, political leaders and leaders in related church organizations...
...Besides frequently testifying before Congressional hearings in behalf of business, the silver-haired Amway chairman speaks out himself on his favorite theme:'' Everyone knows that freedom and free enterprise are like Siamese twins...
...FOR amway's Gold Dust Twins, DeVos and Van Andel, however, the religious and business channels they have set up and/or support for the dissemination of their conservative views, are but additional outside resources to their own...
...Dow Chemical and other corporations think so highly of DeVos's MMW Formula that they have made a half-hour film and filmstrip of it, with classroom study guides, for use in schools throughout the country, ages fourteen years and up...
...The frequent Amway sales meetings and conventions — often with more than 20,000 sales distributor persons in attendance — are likely to start with the "Pledge of Allegiance'' and wind up with the singing of "God Bless America...
...and withdrawal of support for the United Nations...
...Which Way Will You Go...
...And in the words of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," "His truth is marching on"—in one form or another...
...The message is the newsletter's logo: A pretzel—"a long, straight piece of dough that's all bent out of shape . . . like what too much government's doing to us today: bending us all out of shape, twisting and contorting the way we live and work...
...The R.R...
...Free Enterprise nations allow their people to be free...
...This approach fits well with evangelical Christians' traditional home bible studies...
...The company has been more than personally and philosophically rewarding to the two co-owners, who as former high school chums together started Amway (short for "American Way") in 1959, wrapping it from its corporate beginnings in Patriotism, Free Enterprise and Positive Thinking with not a little biblical exhortation, not minding that throughout the...
...The Amway Gold Dust Twins are most preoccupied with their own version and demonstrated success of the American Dream as they see it: of personal riches through hard work without government interference...
...taxes not used for social reform or for income redistribution...
...President DeVos, with his $40,000 green Rolls Royce, is not far behind...
...Socialist nations, DeVos says, by owning the tools, control the people and eventually enslave them...
...One cannot live without the other...
...Recent headings: "Inflation—The Price We Pay When Government Won't Say 'No!," "The Federal Nanny...
...Are they similar enough to say that only two major systems exist, socialism and capitalism...
...Enterprise and the Free Enterprise Institute...
...He was also instrumental in persuading fellow Chamber of Commerce board members to send the message to sharehol29 August 1980: 459 ders of corporations they head — specifically 44,000 shareholders of Pepsico (via Don Kendall) and 48,000 shareholders of Marriott Corporation (via J. Willard Marriott, Jr...
...The elitist religious rationale for all this: The world's two basic economic systems, socialism and capitalism, are either Christian or pagan...
...3. Why are material things so important...
...Art De Moss bluntly if somewhat indiscreetly stated at the time that the purpose of C.F.F...
...6. Is there a meaningful difference between what is called socialism and communism...
...The Dow version was developed by Edward Strom, an economics teacher in the Midland Public Schools of Midland, Michigan...
...Free or Slave...
...Last year Amway organized a series of two-week summer workshops for teachers in 60 cities...
...Higher prices and higher wages are the result of inflation, not the cause...
...Van Andel is also active in the Taxpayers United Federation, a tax reduction group, and in the BusinessIndustry Political Action Committee...
...Chamber of Commerce (84,000 companies, organizations, state and local chambers and individuals), sworn in last May by his good and longtime friend, former U.S...
...But more significant perhaps than the material gains, the Gold Dust Twins are equally adept at marketing their fine line of products and right-wing conservatism together, interchangeably wearing their free-enterprise hats and their political jockey caps...
...However, last May, the F.T.C...
...A really Christian idea too...
...Their heaviest denunciation of government comes down on the interfering regulatory agencies, one of which—the Federal Trade Commission—has been particularly embarrassing to Amway...
...Chairman Van Andel was equally aggressive when he was named the first chairman of the Chamber's newly-formed "Citizens Choice" lobby specifically aimed at "stopping big government" and "recapturing Washington for hard-working taxpayers...
...The more-visible "Gold Dust Twin" of Amway — DeVos — has for years been the quiet Godfather and financial angel of the Religious Right Movement — a loose coalition of fundamentalist religious groups which equate free enterprise with Christianity, and Christianity with anti-government, rightwing conservatism...
...It believes that there are at least five million members of 50,000 churches nationwide that can be politicized via their religious affiliation into a highly conservative force in the nation's politics...
...The Christian grass-roots is being urged to use these books and other communications tools (filmstrips et al), being widely distributed in how-to-win-at-politics kits, in eventually building a massive grass-roots, evangelical, conservative political movement...
...In addition, Amway's Institute offers such classroom visual teaching aids for grades 4 through 8,9 through 12, and ages 14 and up, as: "Freedom 2000" (describing how economic and personal freedoms are interdependent), "Free Enterprise— What's ThatT' (described as "an objective animated cartoon pointing out the benefits of the free market system"), and, of course, DeVos's "Man's Material Welfare" presentation in 27-minute color films and video cassettes, 12-minute slide films, and 20-minute audio cassettes...
...grouping seeks to save the nation by returning it to God and to a right-wing political program, which are equated as one and the same...
...increased military spending (against the Communist threat...
...And even the Gold Dust Twins of the New Conservatism would admit that's no way to acquire a $40,000 green Rolls Royce any time soon...
...It is sent free to anybody who wants it, and specifically to the president, 100 senators, 435 representatives and the 50 state governors "so they can read for themselves the message that hard-working people want to send them...
...DeVos closed one massive rally of his sales people, following the group-singing of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," by asking...
...In a graduate credit course accepted by most Michigan colleges and universities the teachers were taught six important economic concepts, why those concepts should be taught in their classrooms, and how to integrate the concepts into the curriculums for which the teachers were individually responsible...
...In 1975, DeVos and several other conservative businessmen (including John Talcott of Ocean Spray Cranberries and Art De Moss, board chairman of the National Liberty Insurance Corporation) made a significant move to implant their Religious Right views into elective politics...
...And like Mobil, its 3-column x 10-inch cartoon-and-copy "op-ed" ads are almost as ubiquitous and often in the same place as Mobil's in major newspapers throughout the country...
...The huge and emotional gatherings have been likened to revival meetings and President DeVos, a charismatic speaker, to Billy Graham...
...Fortune magazine estimates that Chairman Van Andel's personal fortune from the American Way is between $300 and $500 million...
...For although a relatively few of Amway's direct distributors can make as much as $100,000 a year, the odds against reaching the level are coolly calculated at 1000 to 1, three out of every four of Amway sales distributors quit after the first year, and the average earnings for those who stay is about $125 a month...
...Van Andel criss-crosses the country urging businessmen to "speak out," participate in panel programs, and generally use the media to argue business's viewpoint...
...Since then he has seen to it that the Chamber launched a syndicated national TV program and converted its thin newsletter into a full-fledged weekly newspaper with 425,000 circulation...
...5. Why doesn't price-fixing by government work...
...In addition, through its subsidiary, Amway Communications, the corporation recently bought the conservative-oriented Mutual Broadcasting System of 950 radio stations and is seeking additional media acquisitions...
...They took control of the tax-exempt Christian Freedom Foundation for the main purposes of using its tax-exempt status for their Religious Right organizing efforts and to feed more funds into Third Commonweal: 460 Century's publishing efforts...
...An integral'part of Amway's modern, saucer-shaped international headquarters near Grand Rapids is a national teaching and public information bureau called "The Center for Free Enterprise," an impressive showcase for Amway-style capitalism, religious patriotism and American individualism...
...Commonweal: 462...
...DeVos's favorite speaking theme is on what he calls the MMW Formula (MMW = NR + HE x T), whereby MMW (Man's Material Welfare) is a product of NR (Natural Resources) plus HE (Human Energy) multiplied by T (Tools), which he says is the most important part of the formula because tools can multiply the amount of work humans do...
...way's government relations VP explained the MBS buy, "In addition to a good investment, we have bought an important byproduct — the ability to communicate with the American people...
...Domestic Help We Can't Afford.," "Controls: The Wrong Medicine for the Wrong Patient.," "Regulatory Overkill...
...The wealth of the United States has come about because it employed a system of economics based on Christian principles...
...The Amway chiefs are expanding their efforts year-by-year 29 August 1980: 461 to get their views of economics taught in the classrooms...
...DeVos says he believes in a personal God who made America and men like himself stewards of the world's greatest economic system and of its tremendous wealth...
...has been saying that Amway's sales plan was "a scheme to pyramid distributors upon ever-increasing numbers of other distributors," that it was "doomed to failure," and that it contained an "intolerable potential to deceive...
...President Devos packs the other part of the Amway's top-executive political punch with his own jet-assisted national speaking tours and his active membership on the Board of the National Association of Manufacturers and its strategic Communications Advisory Committee...
...The Branch that's Threatening the Tree.," "Why There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.," "The Energy Solution...
...Van Andel, besides being a top fund-raiser for the Michigan Republican Party, is presently serving an active one-year term as chairman of the U.S...
...2. Why are poor people in the United States relatively better off...
...was to elect conservative Christians to Congress...
...They have their own in-house public information machine in their Center for Free...
...In part the message was that under the Van Andel chairmanship, the Chamber of Commerce was against the Consumer Protection Agency and Universal Voter Registration, among other legislative proposals, and for the deregulation of natural gas prices...
...Since 1975, the F.T.C...
Vol. 107 • August 1980 • No. 15
