So sole proprietors do not count as a business in this definition? Their business would be an extension of themselves. It seems like you all went straight to talking about global corporations in your examples.
The talk was about "evil" in corporations vs. "evil" in state. It was not about "evil" people.
In the case that people build 1-man-corporations or family-member corporations it makes no sense to look at them as corps, because the difference to the person is negligible. Especially when the corp exists not in what we consider today as "legal person". I doubt that any 16th century artisan in his bakery would have considered himself a corporation for example, even if he had a flourishing business.
In fact the difference between "This is my company, I build it with my hands and I decide" and "I am the manager of this company" is probably the main root for corporate evil.
While the person (even if he employs 100 people) had strict ethical standards (whatever they may be) and in some cases surely more importantly was connected and supervised by the people around him, the people of his town, where he lived, often his whole life.
That of course doesnt stop slavery if the society deems slaves normal and naturally, but it surely makes the entrepeneur think twice about where he puts his waste when the risk is high that his neighbor comes complaining with a sword in his hands if his wife cant wash his clothes because you put all this waste in the river ;)
That difference is visible today, too. Family led businesses tend to pay less, but be a lot more "family" to the workers and the place where they are.
Multinational corporations tend to hush up if a few workers get killed that nobody in the central has ever even heard of before. They are just numbers (expensive ones, too!).
Thats basic human psyche - somebody else is responsible, not me, I can do nothing! - even if you dont consider current "business moral" that sees "shareholder value" as the only goal, not stakeholder value (roughly = everyone who is influenced by the business) as it was just a few decades ago.