The Theory of Business Enterprise is an economics (or political economy) book by Thorstein Veblen published in 1904 that looks at the growing corporate domination of culture and the economy.At its heart The Theory of Business Enterprise is an analysis of two intertwined but clashing motivations; that of business and that of industry. Business is the making of profits. Industry (or the "machine process") is the making of goods. Veblen's book was published at a high point of American concern with business combinations and trusts. Veblen employed his evolutionary analysis to explain these new forms.

Veblen is famous for the idea of "conspicuous consumption." Conspicuous consumption, along with "conspicuous leisure," is performed to demonstrate wealth or mark social status. Veblen explains the concept in his best-known book, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). Within the history of economic thought, Veblen is considered the leader of the institutional economics movement. Veblen's distinction between "institutions" and "technology" is still called the Veblenian dichotomy by contemporary economists.