The Most Evil Corporations, Industries and Orgs

Lately, we're having more conversations about corporations whose behaviors have been outrageous, shameful, even criminal. These conversations sometimes lead to people saying this or that company is the worst, the most evil, the most murderous, the most corrupt or corrupting, the most destructive, most exploitative.

Some of the companies often listed include AIG, Blackwater, Diebold, Dow, Enron, Exxon, Fox/Newscorp, Haliburton, Monsanto, Walmart, and then there are whole industries -- the Military industrial complex, big pharma, big agra, health insurers, porn, anti-net neutrality giants, the RIAA music industry fighting downloading, coal burning energy companies, privacy invading, spying telecoms, auto companies building gas-hog pollution machines, corpstream mainstream media selling corporate and government messages, chemical or livestock polluters, oil spillers.

Then there are the enablers -- globalism and its manifestations -- the World Bank, IMF, WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA and those who endorse and promote them, saying they are the only way. The IMF has been known to demand that third world countries privatize their water supply, for example, and Naomi Klein, in her classic book, Shock Doctrine, has documented how these orgs work with the worst corporations to destroy democracy and destroy economies.

In this world of bests and worsts, perhaps it's time to create a museum of evil, where the worst companies, industries, organizations are "awarded" with the honor of being named the most evil, most damaging to the planet and or humanity. The question is, Which of the corporations, orgs and industries would you say are the worst, and why. And are there any which have turned around and rehabilitated themselves? Or once bad always bad?

In these trying economic times, when new ideas and approaches must be developed, maybe it is time we identify and deal with the real enemies of the good, of humanity and the earth. We are eliminating some companies, nationalizing others. Maybe we need to consider other reasons, besides economic bankruptcy -- like moral bankruptcy -- in deciding which companies will survive and which will no longer exist. Now that we've put these kinds of considerations on the table, why should profitability and financial viability alone be the only reasons to consider terminating or completely restructuring some companies, if they've done things that drastically change our world for the worst?

So please, add your comments describing the companies, organizations and industries which deserve to be enshrined in the museum of evil.

Comments

[SimJack]

The principles of democracy do not serve many of the larger corporations, conglomerates and business interests therefore some of these entities will do whatever is necessary to eliminate national democracies in order to control the entire global economy and whatever resources they deem exploitable. Profit, not human rights or global welfare, is their main concern and they need to be carefully regulated, monitored and controlled if necessary. In a way, they can be like silent, insidious terrorists with only one objective and if they irreversibly destroy the environment or lives that's just collateral damage that they will deny having responsibility to repair or restore. Many are not in a partnership with humanity, despite all the money they spend on image ads and lobbyists saying they are. They are at war to isolate and control every useful molecule that earth has to offer and we better start realizing this before it's to late.

[John Steinsvold]

An Alternative to Capitalism?
The following link, takes you to a "utopian" article, entitled "Home of the Brave?" which I wrote and appeared in the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm
John Steinsvold

[PeteLatona]

They are all evil in this sense. I believe that good is Love, which is Bestowal which is pure altruism. Good is when you do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Evil is the opposite meaning self love instead of love for others, egoism instead of altruism. Evil is me first. All corporations are me first. Even when they perform charitable acts they have calculated how much benefit they will recieve.

I worked for a major corporation for 27 years. Many times I was told we needed to make a sacrifice for the "Team" or go the extra mile for the ""company". What this really meant is that some executive above me needed to look good. There is no team and there are only people furthering their careers. The larger the company the more upper level management runs the business for the good of their individual careers and not necessarily what is good for the company. It is a big problem! A man I knew who was on the board of directors of one of our Dow 30 companies once told me," make no mistake, corporations are run for the benefit of the top officers and not for the benefit of the company.

This is not pessimistic, it is reality.By understanding, perhaps corrections can be made. We need people to run companies with intelligence and sensitivity to their effects on the global community. Making money is good, but why can't we be a good citizen?

[dfwcarpentry]

The evil is in the contracts the execuives write for themselves including higher and higher wages with golden umbrellas and bonuses without regard for stockholders. I cannot understand how the public owned companies allow these executives these massive monetary embelishments?

[Davwbaird]

The Catholic church

[undrgrndgirl]

rather than ask for a list of the "evil"; it might be easier to ask for a list of the "good"...

[Rob Kall - Huffpost Blogger]

Looking for the good is a great idea. And it would probably be easier-- a lot less companies on the list.

[mbaty]

How can you blame these companies for simply doing what is required in our current system to survive? Profit is the motive, profit is the goal. The environment doesn't have to be considered; human needs don't have to be consulted, the amount of resources used doesn't factor into it unless it's in monetary terms. The bottom line is money for money's sake, which is what we've had--the logical result of which is companies whose primary focus is on pulling in more money all the time. If it paid to clean up the environment and make products that were non-toxic, they would. Hence, the "green" movement, which has been co-opted, at least for advertising purposes, by many large companies due to those of us speaking out about these legitimate human rights concerns and by our opting-out of consumption of those products which contain contaminants and/or other suspicious ingredients.

[dongarb]

Putting on blinders and willfully ignoring what is happening in the world is not acceptable. People who think money is everything and there are no consequences are like 5 year olds who have wandered into a University class. They should either put on the dunce cap and sit in the corner, or go back to kindergarten class where they belong.

Intelligent, mature adults do not have to waste their time filling in immature juveniles on the basics. The big irony is that it's the corporate sociopaths who think that the rest of us are naive because we don't see the "truth" of the world.

Their "truth" is that the rich, brutal and evil rule the world and always have. The real truth is that sociopaths are insanely stupid and their time as a ruling race is drawing to a close. The morlocks will not survive the 21st century.

[Ben Dixon]

Aside from AIG and Enron, I disagree with you on everyone of these. But for the sake of arguement, what then would you consider to be a list of "Good" corporations?

[nudger]

Here's a nice account - complete with pretty graphics - of how AIG's reputation fell to the level of the likes of Halliburton, IndyMac and Peanut Corp.: http://blog.vanno.com/index.php/2009/03/24/yes-aig-now-has-the-worst-reputation-in-the-world/
And here's the complete list of bottom-dwellers on Vanno's real-time Reputation Index. The Index measures over 5800 companies worldwide on how they treat their customers, employees, communities, the environment and society in general: http://vanno.com/bottom_100

[jerrypl]

The way to break these monopolies is to use the anti-trust laws and break them up into smaller companies so they become less dangerous and more regulated and managed. it happened to ATand T.

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com