I think the question already contains a sort of ideological trap: it assumes that a specific company can be uniquely evil, as if morality were some trait that varies between company to company.
I’m sure everyone’s heard this before:
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
It’s not just a slogan. It gives us insight into the very structure of capitalism. That doesn’t mean every individual act is equally bad, but the system demands a sort of baseline complicity.
CEOs and executives are legally required to maximize shareholder profits. Not just encouraged— legally obligated. So when Coca-Cola, for example, hires paramilitary death squads to kill labor leaders in Colombia, it’s not because it is uniquely monstrous. Replace Coca-Cola with Pepsi, or Nestle, or Amazon, or Raytheon… whatever. The logic of the system would produce the same result. If I gave the same chess position to 30 different Grandmasters… if there is a best move they will all see it and choose that best move.
Think of an ant colony. An ant colony doesn’t decide to be cruel; it expands, consumes, protects its territory, destroys threats. Is it evil when some colony wipes out another for resources? A colony committing what we could term ant genocide? No it’s not. The colony is simply acting in its nature. Much like a slime mold would expand in a radius looking for food in a petri dish.
Large corporations are like ant colonies. Complex emergent behavior resulting from a large number of individual units acting by a set of rules. The intelligence or perspective of the individual does not actually matter for the organism as a whole. As long as the individual units follow a set of rules it creates a sort of “hive-mind” pseudo-intelligence that acts in its own interests and has an almost Darwinist natural selection process.
So this is all to say that I reject the question. I don’t believe in uniquely evil companies. The horror is precisely that they’re all, in a sense, innocent. They act not out of hatred or sadism or cruelty, but because the system itself has carved out the pathways where the ball inevitably rolls down the hill following the path of least resistance.
Pharmaceutical company Bayer. Sold HIV infected blood to poorer countries because they didn’t want to lose the investment they had in the blood.
Basically the blood was tested, found out it was HIV contaminated, went to a part of the world where they didn’t test as well. Messed with the results of the tests, and infected thousands of people with it, and eventually AIDS. All because the financial loss they would have taken from destroying the blood was considered too much.
Granicus
Unknown to most, but they maintain a large number of local, state, and all the way up to Federal US public websites. They have quickly relocated their entire US based team outside of sales to underdeveloped countries over the last year for a very specific reason… And also unbeknownst to most of their clients.
Last year they brought in MS and Amazon CEO brains that have been turning things upside down for a quick flip ever since. These type of people need to BURN.
Palantir is pretty core to the Surveillance Society in several supposedly Democratic countries. More in general just about all companies in that space such as the NSO Group makers of the Pegasus software for remote hacking of smartphones are invariably unethical
Similarly the whole business of Investment Banking is pretty unethical, and that definitely includes most Hedge Funds, the latter never being household names.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“Mormons, Inc.”
Prenda law. A legal outfit that would seed porn and then sue downloaders for copyright violations. The idea being that people would settle to avoid being publicly humiliated by their porn viewing habits.
Chick-fill-A and Hobby Lobby are part of the same asshole Christian subspecies, do crazy shit like stealing/buying stolen artifacts, and being super anti-gay and anti-trans.
Oh and Chick-fil-A’s did is trash. I tried it before I learned the company sucked, not long after it first moved into Chicagoland. Not only is the chicken bland AF - including the “spicy” chicken - but they managed to somehow make waffle fries taste bleh. How the hell do you even fuck up waffle fries? I can’t understand how these assholes stay in business in the area with chicken that’s worse than what I can get at Burger King, much less any of a million small local places and chains.
Chick-fil-A is actually pretty good near me. I get them once a month or once every other month or so.
In terms of fast food, I’d definitely say there’s in the top 20% in terms of food quality.
HSBC - how many times can a bank be caught laundering dirty money and still exist?
Indeed, amazing how KYC is pointless. I feel like the finance industry is very good at packaging things in very appealing terms … yet do exactly the opposite of what it claims.
KYC is not at all pointless. It allows existing monopolise to remain entrenched.
Yes, in fact while writing my comment that’s what I had in mind, namely how can it not only do the opposite of what it claims BUT making it harder for smaller players to contest the “winners” setting up the rules. Wonderful. /s
Generally the larger the company the more evil it is as a general rule, so a lesser known evil company would be unlikely. That’s why I’m supportive of a strong democratic federal government, the natural predator of companies.
There is a US company that I understand the importance of so I won’t share the details but very few know anything about them. I’ll just say they make products used for arts and crafts, celebrations, and also Nuclear Weapons.
Bank of New York Melon
I worked for an investment firm that had about 75 employees, but managed $35 billion in assets. There are a lot of those. Their investments tended to be a lot of the companies ruining the world, ranging from the privatized ambulance companies to the privatized hospice care companies to the emerging-market banks, etc…etc… And that’s just one “small” investment firm.
College Board. Maker of the SAT
Fuck College Board with a rake. Seriously awful when college is already so expensive.
By far all of the US MIC companies.
GNC. The vitamin stores. They knowingly sell expired merchandise and withhold commissions from their employees.
Knauf. They produce drywall boards, among other building materials. You probably dwell a home where these products are built in. Excerpt from linked Wikipedia article:
In 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Yale University published a list of companies that chose to remain active in Russia. According to this report, over 600 companies have withdrawn from Russia — but some remain. Knauf is still operating across 14 sites in Russia but has claimed to have suspended new investments.[5].
In November 2023 Ukraine listed Knauf as an International Sponsor of War for promoting mobilisation in Russia by sending its employees to the war against Ukraine.[6].
According to German public-service broadcaster ARD, Knauf has been active in collaborating with the Russian military in its construction efforts in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.[7][8]Another source (German), 2024 states, that due to investigation of a news outlet, they allegedly withdrew their actions.
Withdrawal in response to ARD investigation?
Only recently, the plaster company from Lower Franconia hit the headlines because of its activities in Russia: Research by the ARD magazine “Monitor” suggested that Knauf had violated EU sanctions against Russia. Whether the withdrawal from Russia is connected to the allegations made was neither confirmed nor denied by the company to BR24 today and a press spokeswoman did not wish to comment on the matter in response to a written request.They probably wanted to have a foot in the door when it comes to rebuilding, when the war will be over finally.
Another, probably more known company is Claas, a manufacturer of farming equipment like combine harvesters and such. Another source (German), 2023 claims
The company condemns Russia’s attack on Ukraine, said Mohr. Nevertheless, Claas cannot and does not want to withdraw from one of the world’s most important agricultural regions. “Both countries are enormously important for feeding the world’s population. That’s why farming must continue there,” Mohr told the SZ newspaper, adding that harvesting machines were essential for this.
