This chapter examines the role of business enterprises as actors in the spread of global capitalism since 1848. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, firms have been the strongest institution to operate across national borders, with the possible exception of the Roman Catholic Church. From the mid nineteenth century tens of thousands of firms, mostly based in Western countries which had experienced the industrial revolution, crossed borders and established operations in foreign countries. The global spread of firms rested crucially on the formal and informal institutions put in place during the nineteenth century, and sometimes earlier. The meltdown of the global economy during the interwar years is an important topic in economic history. Global capitalism had flourished within the context of Western colonialism, and became associated with the political and racial injustice of such regimes. After World War II ended, multinational firms made significant contributions to the reconstruction of a global economy.

Business enterprises are organized very differently in different countries, and neoclassical economics is built around only one such model. Both historically and across modern economies, business groups are usually organized as pyramids. A family firm controls a first tier of listed companies by holding a dominant equity block in each. Business groups figure prominently in economic history, especially in late industrializers. Japan, an industrial power by the 1920s, was the first non-Western country to industrialize successfully. Large family-controlled business groups may well possess a genuine economic advantage over freestanding professionally run firms in low-income economies. Large pyramidal business groups persist in some highly developed economies. Their controlling families strive to be seen as good citizens, and are often keen to cooperate with popular governments. A high-income economy's Big Push commencement exercise can be traumatic for the graduating class of business group controlling shareholders.