John R. Commons | |
|---|---|
 From The Independent , Volume 63 (1907) | |
| Born | October 13, 1862 |
| Died | May 11, 1945 (aged 82) |
| Field | Institutional economics, labor history |
| School or tradition | Institutional economics |
| Doctoral advisor | Richard T. Ely |
| Doctoral students | Alvin Hansen, Edwin E. Witte |
| Influences | Henry Dunning Macleod |
John Rogers Commons (October 13, 1862 – May 11, 1945) was an American institutional economist, Georgist, progressive and labor historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. [1]
John R. Commons was born in Hollansburg, Ohio on October 13, 1862. Commons had a religious upbringing which led him to be an advocate for social justice early in life. Commons was considered a poor student and suffered from a mental illness while studying. He was allowed to graduate without finishing because of the potential seen in his intense determination and curiosity. At this time, Commons became a follower of Henry George's 'single tax' economics. [2] He carried this 'Georgist' or 'Ricardian' approach to economics, with a focus on land and monopoly rents, throughout the rest of his life, including a proposal for income taxes with higher rates on land rents. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
After graduating from Oberlin College, Commons did two years of graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University, where he studied under Richard T. Ely, [8] but left without a degree. [9] [10] After appointments at Oberlin and Indiana University, Commons began teaching at Syracuse University in 1895. [11]
In spring 1899, Syracuse dismissed him as a radical. [12] Eventually Commons re-entered academia at the University of Wisconsin in 1904. [8]
Commons' early work exemplified his desire to unite Christian ideals with the emerging social sciences of sociology and economics. He was a frequent contributor to Kingdom magazine, was a founder of the American Institute for Christian Sociology, and authored a book in 1894 called Social Reform and the Church. [13] He was an advocate of temperance legislation and was active in the national Prohibition Party. [13] By his Wisconsin years, Commons' scholarship had become less moralistic and more empirical, and he moved away from a religious viewpoint in his ethics and sociology. [14]
Commons is best known for developing an analysis of collective action by the state and other institutions, which he saw as essential to understanding economics. Commons believed that carefully crafted legislation could create social change; that view led him to be known as a socialist radical and incrementalist. Contrary to some published accounts, Commons did consider African Americans capable of voting. When he advocated proportional representation, he suggested a "negro party". [15] He even suggested applying the Thirteenth amendment to the Constitution to force Southern States to allow African Americans to vote. [16] He continued the strong American tradition in institutional economics by such figures as the economist and social theorist Thorstein Veblen. His notion of transaction is one of the most important contributions to Institutional Economics. [17] The institutional theory was closely related to his remarkable successes in fact-finding and drafting legislation on a wide range of social issues for the state of Wisconsin. He drafted legislation establishing Wisconsin's worker's compensation program, the first of its kind in the United States.
In 1906, Commons co-founded the American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL) with other economists. [18]
Commons was a contributor to The Pittsburgh Survey, a 1907 sociological investigation of a single American city. His graduate student, John A. Fitch, wrote The Steel Workers, a classic depiction of a key industry in early 20th-century America. It was one of six key texts to come out of the survey. Edwin E. Witte, later known as the "father of social security" also did his PhD at the University of Wisconsin–Madison under Commons.
He was a leading advocate of proportional representation in the United States, writing a book on the subject in 1907 and serving as vice-president of the Proportional Representation League. [19]
Commons undertook two major studies of the history of labor unions in the United States. Beginning in 1910, he edited A Documentary History of American Industrial Society, a large work that preserved many original-source documents of the American labor movement. Almost as soon as that work was complete, Commons began editing History of Labor in the United States, a narrative work which built on the previous 10-volume documentary history.
In 1934, Commons published Institutional Economics, which laid out his view that institutions were made up of collective actions that, along with conflict of interests, defined the economy. He believed that institutional economics added collective control of individual transactions to existing economic theory. [20] Commons considered the Scottish economist Henry Dunning Macleod to be the "originator" of Institutional economics. [21]
He died on May 11, 1945.
Today, Commons's contribution to labor history is considered equal to his contributions to the theory of institutional economics. He also made valuable contributions to the history of economic thought, especially with regard to collective action. He is honored at the University of Wisconsin in Madison with rooms and clubs named for him. [22]
Commons was the mentor of many outstanding economists and has been credited with originating the "Wisconsin Idea," in which university faculty serve as advisors to state government. [23]
His former home, The John R. and Nell Commons House, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [24] [25]
Solely authored works
Co-authored works
Edited works
Thorstein Bunde Veblen was a Norwegian-American economist and sociologist who, during his lifetime, emerged as a well-known critic of capitalism.
The historical school of economics was an approach to academic economics and to public administration that emerged in the 19th century in Germany, and held sway there until well into the 20th century. The professors involved compiled massive economic histories of Germany and Europe. Numerous Americans were their students. The school was opposed by theoretical economists. Prominent leaders included Gustav von Schmoller (1838–1917), and Max Weber (1864–1920) in Germany, and Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950) in Austria and the United States.
Max Otto Lorenz was an American economist who developed the Lorenz curve in an undergraduate essay. He published a paper on this when he was a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His doctoral thesis (1906) was on 'The Economic Theory of Railroad Rates' and made no reference to perhaps his most famous paper. The term "Lorenz curve" for the measure Lorenz invented was coined by Willford I. King in 1912.
Institutional economics focuses on understanding the role of the evolutionary process and the role of institutions in shaping economic behavior. Its original focus lay in Thorstein Veblen's instinct-oriented dichotomy between technology on the one side and the "ceremonial" sphere of society on the other. Its name and core elements trace back to a 1919 American Economic Review article by Walton H. Hamilton. Institutional economics emphasizes a broader study of institutions and views markets as a result of the complex interaction of these various institutions. The earlier tradition continues today as a leading heterodox approach to economics.
John Bates Clark was an American neoclassical economist. He was one of the pioneers of the marginalist revolution and opponent to the Institutionalist school of economics, and spent most of his career as professor at Columbia University.
Edwin Emil Witte was an economist who focused on social insurance issues for the state of Wisconsin and for the Committee on Economic Security. While the executive director of the President's Committee on Economic Security under U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he developed during 1934 the policies and the legislation that became the Social Security Act of 1935. Because of this he is sometimes called "the father of Social Security".
Arthur Joseph Altmeyer was the United States Commissioner for Social Security from 1946 to 1953, and chairman of the Social Security Board from 1937 to 1946. He was a key figure in the design and implementation of the U.S. Social Security system.
Richard Theodore Ely was an American economist, author, and leader of the Progressive movement who called for more government intervention to reform what they perceived as the injustices of capitalism, especially regarding factory conditions, compulsory education, child labor, and labor unions.
Neil Joseph Smelser (1930–2017) was an American sociologist who served as professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was an active researcher from 1958 to 1994. His research was on collective behavior, sociological theory, economic sociology, sociology of education, social change, and comparative methods. Among many lifetime achievements, Smelser "laid the foundations for economic sociology."
Edward Alsworth Ross was a progressive American sociologist, eugenicist, economist, and major figure of early criminology.
Henry Rogers Seager was an American economist, and Professor of Political Economy at Columbia University, who served as president of the American Association for Labor Legislation.
Karl Eman Přibram, also known as “Karl Pribram”, was an Austrian-born economist. He is most noted for his work in labor economics, in industrial organization, and in the history of economic thought.
Charles McCarthy was a political scientist, public administrator, Progressive reformer, and briefly, an American football coach. He is credited with founding the first legislative reference library in the United States. McCarthy was active in policy formation, with special interests in agricultural cooperatives and adult and vocational education. He authored The Wisconsin Idea, a summary of Progressive philosophy and thinking.
Philip Taft (1902–1976) was an American labor historian whose research focused on the labor history of the United States and the American Federation of Labor.
Selig Perlman was an economist and labor historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Kenneth Herald Parsons (1903–1998) was a Professor of Agricultural economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Sumner Huber Slichter was an American economist and the first Lamont University Professor at Harvard University. Slichter was considered by many to be the pre-eminent labor economist of the 1940s and 1950s. Slichter was adamantly opposed to the labor movement, and called repeatedly for legislation against unionization. Slichter was also a critic of the New Deal."
Daniel W. Bromley is an economist, the former Anderson-Bascom Professor of applied economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and since 2009, Emeritus Professor. His research in institutional economics explains the foundations of property rights, natural resources and the environment; and economic development. He has been editor of the journal Land Economics since 1974.
Balthasar Henry Meyer was an American government official and professor of economics and sociology. He served for 28 years as a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
The John and Nell Commons House is a large hilltop bungalow built in 1913 in Madison, Wisconsin, from which UW professor John R. Commons wrote influential books on economics, helped craft Progressive public policy, and mentored a generation of economists. The house itself was designed by Cora Tuttle - not a formally trained architect, but the first woman to practice architecture in Madison. In 1985 the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Commons, John, R. 1900. Representative Democracy. New York: American Bureau of Economic Research, 1900. Available at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924032462842&view=1up&seq=18
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