The Institutionalist Method and Vision of John R. Commons

Although John R. Commons is widely recognized as a founding contributor to institutional economics, readers in his time and ours have often found it difficult to understand what he had to say. This article complements new contributions to what Commons was (as he put it) “driving at” by spelling out not only the research method used to produce his transactional theory of value and other theories and analyses, but also the “pre-analytic vision” underlying that method. Combined with his theories, analyses, and conception of the economist’s role in economic reform, Commons’s vision and method round out his institutionalist perspective. Thus, the article offers additional insight on the longstanding question of what Commons was driving at and how his work contributes to the institutionalist tradition. It also shows that a look at Commons’s perspective reinforces some of the essential elements and key principles of contemporary institutional economics.