The trade companies were in fact companies. They were licensed by their respective governments, but they were companies. The Dutch East India company was in fact the first stock company.

However, that's not what I am referring to when I am saying capitalism lifted people out of poverty. We don't have to go that far back. Simply look at any chart of life expectancy, infant mortality or any other indicator of quality of life during Soviet times and after. It starts going up after they got rid of communism. Same in China after it opened itself to market forces and now that Xi is messing with it they growth is running into issues. Every country that has made the jump from low to middle-income country has done so by initially doing cheap, low-value-add manufacturing. At that initial stage everyone is whining about "exploitation" but subsistence farmers are happy to take the factory jobs and over time they wages rise and if the government doe sit right, their kids get better education and eventually the country becomes high-income. Take a look at the Asian tiger states for more recent examples of this. (the big exception are of course tiny tax havens or oil countries which are not reproducible or scalable.). Which country is seeing the biggest growth in Africa? Botswana which took the approach of liberalizing its economy.

Of course, anarcho-capitalism doesn't work either. I agree that the free market must be protected from manipulation by players in that market as well. I am also in favor of wealth-redistribution that avoids dead-weight-loss.

However, none of that changes the fact that trying to do "good" has done incredible amounts of harm directly and indirectly, especially if it involves punishing individuals or groups or trying to suppress the free market.

If an existing company sucks, start a competitor! Their suck is your opportunity