Big business is large-scale, corporate-controlled, financial or business activities. As a term, it is typically used to describe activities that run from "huge transactions" to the more general "doing big things." The concept first arose in a symbolic sense after 1880 in connection with the combination movement that began in American business at that time. Organizations that fall into the category of "big business" include ExxonMobil, Wal-Mart, Apple, Google, Microsoft, General Electric, General Motors, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.
Read more about Big Business: History, Post World Wars, Criticism of Big Business
Famous quotes containing the words big business, big and/or business:
“I do esteem individual liberty above everything. What is a nation for, but to secure the maximum of liberty to every individual? What do you think a nation is?—a big business concern?”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“We saw the lightning and that was the guns; and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.”
—Harriet Tubman (1821–1913)
“BOSWELL. But what do you think of supporting a cause which you know to be bad? JOHNSON. “Sir, you do not know it to be good or bad till the Judge determines it.... It is his business to judge; and you are not to be confident in your own opinion that the cause is bad, but to say all you can for your client, and then hear the Judge’s opinion.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)