Is he dishonest, corrupt, or evil like his Evil Counterpart Flintheart Glomgold? Not a chance. Is he always ready to exploit whatever openings an opponent might leave him? Absolutely.
Is he a hard bargainer who doesn't suffer fools easily? You bet. Is he a stern, demanding taskmaster? Sure. This is completely averted by Scrooge McDuck, of course.Lloyd Waite, CEO of Strader Pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, is outright evil and willing to conduct deadly human experimentation of unsuspecting victims. When he bankrupted the company, he sold his teenage son's possessions before anything of his own to try and maintain his lifestyle. He shows no interest in his employees or those who need the medical devices his company sells. Robin (1993): Jack Drake is never depicted as outright evil, but he's a domestic abuser who didn't even keep a home in the city he kept his son in until he'd gotten injured and needed extensive physical therapy and used Drake Industries to fund his expensive jet-setting lifestyle.Played completely straight, however, with Brande's main business rival Leland McCauley, a backstabbing jerkass of epic proportions. Depending on the continuity, it's repeatedly been hinted that he's the mode locked future incarnation of Martian Manhunter. Brande, the wealthy patron of the Legion of Super-Heroes. His periods as a bad guy have nothing to do with his money and everything to do with the fact that he has some nasty mental illness issues. He's a genius with enough wealth to make Bruce Wayne look middle class. Steve Dayton (aka Mento) is also a subversion.Reasons are unknown, but may have involved paranoia regarding the metahuman populace. However, he would descend into full-blown villany with him murdering Ted Kord. Maxwell Lord, the CEO and founder of Justice League International, was arrogant, but ultimately a reasonable man.Oliver Queen was also a subversion, but has gotten out of the game.Post-Crisis, the affiliation with Darkseid was declared real, and he is now really and truly evil. An evil clone once tried to frame him as being a minion of Darkseid, but Edge was proven innocent. Before the Crisis, Morgan Edge was arrogant and obnoxious, but certainly not evil, and he could even show a surprisingly decent side from time to time (refusing to cross a union's picket line, for instance).In The DCU, everyone except Bruce Wayne, and his CEO Lucius Fox, is villainous, from Lex Luthor to Morgan Edge, especially now that Ted Kord is dead.This trope is practically ubiquitous in Cyberpunk works. Corporate executives, on the other hand, climb in an already established hierarchy, the leadership (thus also responsibility for any wrongdoing) of which is decentralised into some shadowy group, like "the board of directors" going back to our feudal analogy, they would have more in common with court intriguers. These people are often depicted as independently wealthy Self-Made Men who have wits and spirit enough to carve out their empires, and if not, they at least are in charge and take responsibility for them, tied to them in a way a king may be to his realm. Wealthy entrepreneurs are the only type of 'executive' who do not always fall into this trope.
Greed corp. tv tropes license#
Indeed, on several occasions, perfectly legal exploitation and brutality has resulted in government intervention (as in the USA's 'Gilded Age' to stave off 'The Red Hydra').įor puppy-kicking baby-eating sociopaths who openly flout the law in an otherwise perfectly nice and functional society, this trope can overlap with Artistic License – Economics. it can sometimes be bad for a company to engage in criminal activity - or even too much law-abiding chicanery and ruthlessness. Able to influence or blackmail the government, press, or organised crime.Able to forge effective working relationships with the other companies operating in its field (to form 'cartels' which possess an 'oligopoly').The sole company operating in that field (i.e.
However, this does not always translate into sadism, exploitation, violence, and crime. To a certain extent, this is Truth in Television, as greed and amorality are Inherent in the System: the purpose of companies is to generate profits, and the purpose of management is to maximise them. In this setting, the Honest Corporate Executive is merely a Villain with Good Publicity, and in a twist, who runs Peace & Love Incorporated. For them the swindling of customers, abuse of employees, and use of violence to eliminate problems simply comes with the job - or are nice fringe benefits. In this setting, all businessmen are some variation of the Corrupt Corporate Executive: not merely greedy and amoral, but actively evil.
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