[extropy-chat] Big business being naughty

[Jack Parkinson]

John K Clark said:
>It's interesting, for some reason people love to
>dwell on the bad things business has done, but if you put all the evil
>business has committed over the last century together in one big lump I
>can't find a word stronger than "naughty" to describe it compared to the
>horrors committed by government. Perhaps Wal-Mart hasn't treated
>its employees with enough consideration from time to time, but at
>least Wal-Mart doesn't push people into ovens.
>John K Clark

Mmm... some of that naughtiness was a bit extreme. Bayer for instance. As well as inventing Aspirin, they also trademarked Heroin and sold it in several European countries in the early part of last century as a cure for headaches and a 'safe pacifier' for mothers to give their babies. Bayer avidly supported Hitler and DID push people into ovens.  During WWII they operated their own corporate death camp and employed the infamous Dr Mengele to perform often lethal medical experiments (generally without anaesthetic) on hapless prisoners. 

That was VERY naughty I think. One of their directors was executed for it at the Nuremberg war trials, a number of others got long prison terms. Check the Bayer opposition shareholders website for details.

We won't mention the murky pasts of Toyota, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen - or the violence of the private African armies known - not without reason by the locals who live in fear of them - as the 'death squads' of the big oil companies...

Practically every multinational has a criminal record: http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/ and some, (many of them) have been convicted for more than just slipping folding money into a brown paper bag. Death, destruction, mutilation and mayhem are not hard to find in the naughtiness of big business in the last 100 years...

Jack Parkinson


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