In today’s world, I’d nominate Patent Squatters as inherently evil companies. They create nothing but roadblocks to innovation, and suck the money out of companies that actually attempt to innovate.
Goldman Sachs was already mentioned, but without the full opening of the recent Rolling Stone piece by Matt Taibbi: “The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.”
Last I heard corporations ARE individuals. Working from that, the extent to which collective intent and actions of a single person net them a good or evil label, a corporation’s official decisions & actions would also net out to good or evil. Yeah, corporations are comprised of people with varying degrees of morality, but your own mind is also comprised of thoughts of varying degrees of morality. All that matters is what the collective allows to be expressed.
United Fruit Company/Chiquita Banana is indeed really hard to beat. I went to a college lecture on the topic back in the 90’s. It took an hour for the professor just to cover the highlights of their rogue activities spread over many decades. Most of the summary articles that you see on the web barely scratch the surface. It takes at least a book to even summarize the depth of breadth of it all.
I would also nominate the De Beers family of diamond companies.
Eh. If we discount the supernatural, the only functional definition of “evil” is: “willing to inflict harm on others for gain.”
In humans, “gain” would include social status, comfort, monetary gain, a mate, and many other things. In corporations, it’s usually monetary gain, either directly or in the slightly indirect form of market share or relaxed regulatory oversight.
By that definition, there have definitely been evil corporations. Although these firms did things are less dramatic than overthrowing governments, I’ll throw in all the tobacco companies, the companies that promoted leaded gasoline, and Union Carbide.
The companies involved in the Rubber Boom in South America such as the Peruvian Amazon Company.
The companies involved in the Belgian Congo, such as the rubber company the Abir Congo Company.
And the various slave trading companies such as The Dutch West India Company, the Royal African Company, the South Sea Company.