History Main / ThereAreNoGoodExecutives

* Pretty much every executive at Clamp Enterprises in ''Film/Gremlins2TheNewBatch'' is a complete amoral a-hole except, ironically, the C.E.O. Daniel Clamp who's aloof but otherwise a nice guy. He does do one really douchy thing near the end, but it's to Forster [[KickTheSonOfABitch who's a jerk anyways.]]

For puppy-kicking baby-eating sociopaths who openly flout the law in an otherwise perfectly nice and functional society, this trope can overlap with ArtisticLicenseEconomics.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' has [[ProudMerchantRace the Ferengi]], which make being a dishonest businessman their [[PlanetOfHats hat]]. While they are [[PragmaticVillainy pragmatic]] about it, any HonestCorporateExecutive who runs their business for a greater purpose than profit would be branded a heretic and thrown out, and most of the ones that defy their species' standards aren't in business at all. Quark, who would be considered a skeevy smuggler and MeanBoss by human standards, is considered too nice by other Ferengi, who accuse him of being soft-hearted and human because he only steals 30% of his workers' tips and sold supplies to starving refugees at [[FauxHorrific just above cost]].

In this setting, ''all'' businessmen are some variation of the CorruptCorporateExecutive: not merely greedy and amoral, but actively ''evil''. 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 the HonestCorporateExecutive is merely a VillainWithGoodPublicity, and in a twist, who runs PeaceAndLoveIncorporated .

To a certain extent this is TruthInTelevision as greed and amorality are InherentInTheSystem: the purpose of companies is to generate profits, and the purpose of management is to maximise them. ''However'', this does not ''always'' translate into sadism, exploitation, violence, and crime. This is because when a company is not:

...it can sometimes be ''bad'' for a company to engage in criminal activity - or even too much ''law-abiding'' chicanery and ruthlessness. Indeed, on several occasions perfectly legal exploitation and brutality has resulted in government intervention (as in [[TheGildedAge the USA's 'Gilded Age']] to stave off [[RedScare 'The Red Hydra']]).

Wealthy entrepreneurs are the only type of 'executive' who do not always fall into this trope. These people are often depicted as independently wealthy [[SelfMadeMan 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 of them, tied to them in a way a king may be to his realm. 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 [[EvilChancellor court intriguers]].

** Maxwell Lord, the CEO and founder of ''Comicbook/JusticeLeagueInternational'' was arrogant, but ultimately a reasonable man. However, he would descend into full-blown villany with him ''murdering'' Ted Kord. Reasons are unknown but may have involved paranoia regarding the metahuman populace.

** ''ComicBook/Robin1993'': 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. He shows no interest in his employees or those who need the medical devices his company sells. When he bankrupted the company he sold his teenage son's possessions before anything of his own to try and maintain his lifestyle. Lloyd Waite, CEO of Strader Pharmaceuticals, on the other hand is outright evil and willing to conduct deadly human experimentation of unsuspecting victims.

** Also averted in the larger ComicBook/DisneyMouseAndDuckComics franchise: while they have their share of corrupt executives such as Flintheart Glomgold, Emil Eagle (usually just a MadScientist, but some Super Goof stories also add a billionaire side to parallel Lex Luthor) and John Rockerduck, plus a number of one-shot characters, they also have honest ones such as Scrooge, DependingOnTheWriter Rockerduck (who anyway never lowers himself to what Glomgold would do), [[ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures Everett Ducklair]] (whose answer to finding out some of his hi-tech military weapons had ended on the black market was to have the culprit tracked down-and promptly hand all evidence to the proper authorities rather than deal with it himself, as he was too honest for such things), and even ''Mickey's own father'' in his youth (who, while extremely cynical and unable to trust anyone due an apparent betrayal from his best friends costing him the family ranch, once he struck rich remained unfailingly honest), and they're shown to be far more effective: Scrooge is the Richest Duck in the World, Rockerduck is more a threat to that title than the less honest Glomgold manages to be, Ducklair is ''the'' biggest name in hi-tech products, and Mickey's father could see the 1929 Crash coming and sold his company in time, setting aside money to reduce the impact on the people ruined by it.

* ''Film/TronLegacy'' had an infamous scene with the Encom boardroom, where they're boasting about their latest and greatest operating system. Alan Bradley, the only [[SubvertedTrope subversion]] in the room, points out that they're charging schools and non-profits a fortune - what are the customers getting in return? The idiot CEO shrugs and says "it has a 12 on the box..." This is meant to demonstrate that the company has fallen from its innovative times under Walter Gibbs and Flynn Sr. while cementing sympathy for Sam's [[PlayfulHacker annual]] [[LikeFatherLikeSon practical joke]].

** Averted with Ken Masters and Hakan, who apart of being powerful fighters are CEO's of their own companies and are firmly on the side of good.

** The Horizon tie-in fiction in the 20th Anniversary Version of the 4th edition core rules does show that Gary Cline, Horizon's CEO, is very likely a sociopath. Seeing as how when a former executive from a rival megacorporation burst into his office intending to kill Cline for ruining his career by getting the better of him in a business deal and took Cline's executive assistant hostage, Gary Cline's response was... to tell his assistant that Gary had been upset with the way his assistant had fumbled a recent project anyway, that he had [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlived his usefulness]], and Cline then killed his secretary himself. He then congratulated the gunman on his assertiveness and planning skills, and offered him a job with Horizon. The story vignette ends with the guy asking Cline if Horizon has a good vacation plan. And the professional-salesman's smile never left Gary's face the entire time.

* The sole company operating in that field (i.e. it does not possesses a 'monopoly')

** Maxwell Lord, the CEO and founder of ''Comicbook/JusticeLeagueInternational'' was arrogant, but ultimately a reasonable man. However, he would descend into full-blown villany with him ''murdering'' Ted Kord. Reasns are unknown but may have involved paranoia regarding the metahuman populace.

** ''Series/{{Angel}}'', of course, revolved around Wolfram and Hart's villainy (though they were lawyers instead of industrialists) and regularly implied awful things about the firm's various corporate clients. (He even described season 5 as going from a small business to the morally gray environment of the corporate world.)

* The show ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' pretty much runs on this trope. Half the episodes are about some evil executive(s) or entire corporations abusing their power. What's sad is that the show's staff has pointed out that many of their 'ridiculous' plots about corporate evil were in fact drawn from real life, only ''toned down''.

* ''Comicstrip/{{Dilbert}}'', of course, although its viewpoint might be better described [[HumansAreBastards There Are No Good People]]. One of the strip reprint books was titled ''I'm Not Anti-Business, I'm Anti-Idiot''.

* Subverted to a great extent in the [[FanFic/UltimateSleepwalker Earth]]-[[FanFic/UltimateSpiderWoman 2706]] verse. In both the ''Ultimate Sleepwalker'' and ''Ultimate Spider-Woman'' series, {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s have expressed their hatred of their honest competitors. According to corrupt executives like Norman Osborn, the Honest Corporate Executives (people like [[IronMan Tony Stark]], [[ComicBook/CaptainBritain Brian Braddock]], [[ComicBook/XMen Warren Worthington]] and [[Comicbook/MoonKnight Marc Spector]]) are cowards who are holding the rest of them back. Guys like Stark and Worthington obviously enjoy the wealth and power that comes with their work, but at the end of the day they're really only interested in running their businesses. People like Osborn and Justin Hammer, on the other hand, actively believe that their wealth and power give them the right to lord over the lower classes and do whatever they want to them.

To a certain extent this is TruthInTelevision as greed and amorality are InherentInTheSystem: the purpose of companies is to generate profits, and the purpose of management is to maximise them. ''However'', this does not ''always'' translate into sadism, violence, and crime. This is because when a company is not:

* ''VideoGame/HarryTheHandsomeExecutive'' is a heroic exception.

* ThePhantomOfTheOpera: In the original book by Gaston Leroux, this is the reason Erik (the eponymous phantom) could maintain his reign of terror: In Parisian society, [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections it’s not what you do, it’s who you know]]. Therefore the executives at the Opera and the police are not only corrupt, but {{Stupid Boss}}es who don’t care about how to do their job better but only how to practice politics and be discrete about all their problems, making them the perfect victims of BlackMail.

* In ''''Literature/{{Island|1962}}'''', if you own, manage, work for or support an oil company, you are an evil, greedy person out to destroy [[{{Utopia}} Palan way of life]].

** Also averted in the larger ComicBook/DisneyMouseAndDucksComics franchise: while they have their share of corrupt executives such as Flintheart Glomgold, Emil Eagle (usually just a MadScientist, but some Super Goof stories also add a billionaire side to parallel Lex Luthor) and John Rockerduck, plus a number of one-shot characters, they also have honest ones such as Scrooge, DependingOnTheWriter Rockerduck (who anyway never lowers himself to what Glomgold would do), [[ComicBook/PaperinikNewAdventures Everett Ducklair]] (whose answer to finding out some of his hi-tech military weapons had ended on the black market was to have the culprit tracked down-and promptly hand all evidence to the proper authorities rather than deal with it himself, as he was too honest for such things), and even ''Mickey's own father'' in his youth (who, while extremely cynical and unable to trust anyone due an apparent betrayal from his best friends costing him the family ranch, once he struck rich remained unfailingly honest).

--> '''Scrooge McDuck''': It's worth millions! And who '''needs''' self respect when you're rich! Ha ha ha ha *subconsciously puts the treasure back in its rightful place and leaves* hahaaaaw nuts!

** ''Storm Front'' has made it explicitly plain that Horizon actually is no Deconstruction at all -- they were merely AffablyEvil VillainsWithGoodPublicity all along. At least the other Mega Corps in the setting acknowledge their amorality to disillusion their reputation among runners and the general public...

In this setting, ''all'' businessmen are some variation of the CorruptCorporateExecutive: not merely greedy and amoral, but actively ''evil''. 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 the HonestCorporateExecutive is merely a VillainWithGoodPublicity.

** Totally averted with R.J. Brande, the wealthy patron of the Comicbook/LegionOfSuperHeroes. Depending on the continuity, it's repeatedly been hinted that he's the [[ShapeshifterModeLock mode locked]] future incarnation of Comicbook/MartianManhunter. Played completely straight, however, with Brande's main business rival Leland [=McCauley=], a backstabbing JerkAss of epic proportions.

** Totally averted with R.J. Brande, the wealthy patron of the Comicbook/LegionOfSuperHeroes. Depending on the continuity, it's repeatedly been hinted that he's the [[ShapeshifterModeLock mode locked]] future incarnation of Comicbook/MartianManhunter. Played completely straight, however, with Brande's main business rival Leland [=McCauley=], a backstabbing Jerkass of epic proportions.

* ''Literature/AmericaTheBook'' had a rather pithy reason for this, tying into InherentInTheSystem. One of the "Question sections" had a brief quiz about decisions to be made by a CEO - option A was the HonestCorporateExecutive route, while B was the CorruptCorporateExecutive route[[labelnote:Example]]"Would you rather hire: A) one 50-year-old, or B) ten 5-year-olds?"[[/labelnote]]
-->''If you picked A to any of these questions, congratulations! [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished You have just been fired by the person that answered B.]]

* ''Literature/AmericaTheBook'' had a rather pithy reason for this, tying into InherentInTheSystem. One of the "Question sections" had a brief quiz about decisions to be made by a CEO - option A was the HonestCorporateExecutive route, while B was the CorruptCorporateExecutive route[[labelnote:Example]]"Would you rather hire: A) one 50-year-old, or B) ten 5-year-olds?"[[/labelnote]]
-->''If you picked A to any of these questions, congratulations! [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished You have just been fired by the person that answered "B".]]

* ''Literature/AmericaTheBook'' had a rather pithy reason for this, tying into InherentInTheSystem. One of the "Question sections" had a brief quiz about decisions to be made by a CEO - option A was the HonestCorporateExecutive route, while B was the CorruptCorporateExecutive route[[labelnote:Example]]"Would you rather hire: A) one 50-year-old, or B) ten 5-year-olds?[[/labelnote]].
-->''If you picked A to any of these questions, congratulations! [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished You have just been fired by the person that answered "B".]]

* This is completely averted by [[WesternAnimation/DuckTales Scrooge McDuck]], of course. Is he a stern, demanding taskmaster? Sure. Is he a hard bargainer who doesn't suffer fools easily? You bet. Is he always ready to exploit whatever openings an opponent might leave him? Absolutely. Is he dishonest, corrupt, or evil like his EvilCounterpart Flintheart Glomgold? Not a chance.