>"I think you’ve totally missed the definition of “whataboutism”."
Not at all. Whataboutism is a variation on "tu quoque", the idea being an attempt to establish an equivalence between two disparate actions. The disparate actions here being McKinsey's active role in the opioid epidemic - the focal point of this article and the consulting industry's questionable moral compass. PWC, Deloitte and KPMG are not "also" pushing opiods.
They are consulting on other projects that are equally shitty and immoral, whether it be how to structure some financial instrument to screw someone over, or how to implement software to variably price some product based on protected factors, or how to price pharmaceuticals to maximize subscriber copays, or how to design a product with better obsolescence, etc. etc. etc.
Saying that McKinsey is uniquely shitty is perhaps a case study in missing the forest for the tree.
If they could be found criminally liable for all these things that they help their customers
Not at all. Whataboutism is a variation on "tu quoque", the idea being an attempt to establish an equivalence between two disparate actions. The disparate actions here being McKinsey's active role in the opioid epidemic - the focal point of this article and the consulting industry's questionable moral compass. PWC, Deloitte and KPMG are not "also" pushing opiods.