The industrial complex is a socioeconomic concept wherein businesses become entwined in social or political systems or institutions, creating or bolstering a profit economy from these systems. Such a complex is said to pursue its own interests regardless of, and often at the expense of, the best interests of society and individuals. Businesses within an industrial complex may have been created to advance a social or political goal, but mostly profit when the goal is not reached. The industrial complex may profit financially, or ideologically, from maintaining socially detrimental or inefficient systems.

The concept was popularized by President Dwight Eisenhower^[1] in his Jan. 17, 1961 farewell speech. Eisenhower described a "threat to democratic government"^[1] called the military–industrial complex. This complex involved the military establishment gaining "unwarranted influence" over the economic, political, and spiritual realms of American society due to the profitability of the US arms industry and the number of citizens employed in various branches of military service, the armaments industry, and other businesses providing goods to the US army. The "complex" arises from the creation of a multilateral economy serving military goals, as well as the paradox that arises from the goal of the multilateralism (sustained profit) as antithetical to the military's theoretical goal (peace).

In many cases, the industrial complex refers to a conflict of interest between an institution's purported socio-political purpose and the financial interests of the businesses and government agencies that profit from the pursuit of such purpose, when achieving the stated purpose would result in a financial loss for those businesses. For example, the purported purpose of the US penal system is to assist offenders in becoming law abiding citizens^[2] yet the prison–industrial complex subsists upon high inmate populations, thus relying on the penal system's failure to meet its goal of criminal reform and re-entry. In these types of cases, government agencies are often thought to profit financially from institutional industrialization, perhaps eroding their motivation to legislate such institutions in ways that may be socially beneficial.

The industrial complex concept has also been used informally to denote the artificial creation, inflation, or manipulation of an institution's societal value in order to increase profit opportunities, especially through specialty businesses and niche products. An example of this is the marriage industrial complex,^[3][4][5][6] where demand for wedding dress makers, wedding venues, wedding planners, wedding cake bakers, wedding rentals companies, wedding photographers, etc, is created by the perceived social necessity of an elaborate wedding ceremony.^[7]

• Military–Industrial Complex — Businesses that supply the army with technology, vehicles, uniforms, artillery, etc. Profit of these businesses rely on international threats, rising tensions, and ultimately war, which potentially creates a conflict of interests in which peace and cooperation compromise economic activity of this industry.^[8]
• Non-profit industrial complex, or "NPIC" — is a term which is used by social justice activists to describe the way non-profit organizations, governments, and businesses are related. The academic genealogy of the term follows the lineage of what social justice activists and scholars such as Angela Davis and Mike Davis have called the Prison-Industrial Complex, which, too, follows an earlier critique of the military-industrial complex. Many activists carry out their work as employees of or with the assistance of non-profit organizations. Many of their goals need money in order to be achieved, and nonprofits are registered with the government in order to be allowed to receive large amounts of money legally. These activist nonprofits usually get money from even bigger nonprofits, which are connected to big businesses and rich people who control industries. But because many activists criticize things in society that businesses and rich people support, they might not get the money if they are too critical. So in order to stay funded, they may have to change the ideas they have for improving society to be more acceptable to industry. People who believe these kinds of relationships between activists and industries are harmful to activism use the term non-profit industrial complex as a faster way to discuss these relationships, instead of explaining the whole system each time. They have written many articles and books describing the effects of the NPIC by studying patterns of funding or discussing how the goals of some activists changed once their movements began to receive more money.^[9][10]
• Animal–Industrial Complex — Livestock has evolved from a traditional and environmentally-friendly practice into a multi billion dollar industry. In order to supply the growing demand of animal based products, many businesses participating on this industry are conducting practices that prioritize the increase of production over environmental and social responsibility. This is contributing to problems such as climate change,^[11] ocean acidification,^[11] biodiversity loss,^[11] and spread of zoonotic diseases.^{[12]: 198 [13][14]}
• Prison–Industrial Complex — Businesses in certain states can access labor from prisoners, which is cheaper than civilian labor. This creates an interest on incarceration derived by profitability.^[15]
• Medical–Industrial Complex — The final consumers of hospitals and pharmaceutical companies are the sick, the disabled, and those suffering from medical problems. It exists a conflict of interest, since healing patients permanently is less profitable than making them dependent on more lengthy or expensive solutions to their problems, or directly contributing to the worsening or generation of health problems.^[16] Inflation of drug and hospital prices contribute to the rising expense of healthcare in the United States.^[17][18]
• (Hot) Take-Industrial Complex – Professional commentators need to express novel opinions (known as "hot takes") to differentiate themselves and capture audience attention, which leads to increasingly fringe ideas becoming the most prominent in the public discourse.^[19][20]

The following have been considered examples of industrial complexes:

• Academic–industrial complex^{[21][22][23][24]}
• Animal–industrial complex^[25]
• Athletic–industrial complex
• Baby or diaper–industrial complex^[26][27][28]
• Celebrity–industrial complex
• Global–industrial complex^[29]
• Immigration–industrial complex^[30][31][32] or border–industrial complex^[33][34]
• Medical–industrial complex^[35] or medical–pharmacological industrial complex
• Military–industrial complex
  • Military-digital complex
  • Military-entertainment complex
  • Military–industrial–media complex^[36]
• Nonprofit–industrial complex^[37] or NGO–industrial complex^[38]
• Peace–industrial complex
• Pharmaceutical–industrial complex
• Politico-media complex
• Poverty industrial complex
• Prison–industrial complex^[39] or criminal (justice) industrial complex^[40]
• White savior industrial complex^[41]

• Socioeconomics