Evil corporation

An evil corporation ignores social responsibility, morality, ethics, and sometimes laws in order to make profit for its shareholders.^[1] In rare cases, the corporation may be well intentioned but extremist, engaging in noble cause corruption.

Logo and slogan of the fictional evil Weyland-Yutani corporation from the Alien franchise

In fiction

The notion is "deeply embedded in the landscape of contemporary culture—populating films, novels, videogames, and more." The science fiction genre served as the initial background to portray corporations in this dystopian light.^[1]

Evil corporations can be seen to represent the danger of combining capitalism with larger hubris.^[2]

Some notable uses of the trope include the Tyrell and Wallace corporations in Blade Runner, Arasaka Corporation in Cyberpunk, Weyland-Yutani in Alien, Vault-Tec in Fallout, InGen in Jurassic Park, Resources Development Administration (RDA) in Avatar, Umbrella Corporation in Resident Evil, E-Corp in Mr. Robot and Lumon Industries in Severance.

Real-world usage

Some real-world corporations have been accused of being evil. To guard against such accusations, Google used the official motto "Don't be evil" until the formation of Alphabet Inc. Rob Enderle argued that this motto was never truly followed, and critics of Google have accused the company of "evil" acts such as secret data collection, violating customers' privacy, and political bias.^[1][3] The motto was eventually moved to the very end of its code of conduct.^[4] The New Yorker wrote that "many food activists consider Monsanto (which later merged with Bayer) to be the definitively evil corporation".^[5]

The Debate over Corporate Social Responsibility wrote, "For many consumers, Walmart serves as the evil corporation prototype, but record numbers shop at the stores for low prices."^[6]

In Japan, a committee of journalists and rights activists issues an annual "corporate raspberry award" known as Most Evil Corporation of the Year Award (also called the Black Company Award) to a company "with a culture of overwork, discrimination and harassment".^[7]

After the shooting of Brian Thompson in December 2024, many Americans used social media to express their outrage against health insurance companies and the American healthcare system overall, often using terms associated with the trope to describe these corporations.^{[8][9][10][11]}

See also

• Anti-capitalism
• Anti-consumerism
• Anti-corporate activism
• Big Pharma conspiracy theory
• Business ethics
• Corporate crime
• Corporate warfare
• Criticism of capitalism
• Criticisms of corporations
• Cyberpunk
• Human rights § Corporations
• Karen Silkwood
• List of corporate collapses and scandals
• Megacorporation
• Military–industrial complex
• Multinational corporation
• Organized crime
• Prison–industrial complex
• Psychopathy in the workplace
• Shareholder primacy
• State crime
• State-corporate crime
• The Corporation (2003 film)