Institutional Economics: Its Place in Political Economy, Volumes 1 & 2

Commons opened Institutional Economics by declaring: "My point of view is based on my participation in collective activities, from which I here derive a theory of the part played by collective action in control of individual action." This sentence well summarizes the three key elements of this book--its theoretical intent, the importance Commons gave to his own experience in institutional reform in shaping these ideas, and the focus on the concept of the institution as a collective constraint on individual action. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSACTION EDITION PREFACE CHAPTER I. THE POINT OF VIEW CHAPTER II. METHOD (I) JOHN LOCKE 1. Ideas 2. Value 3. Custom (II) TRANSACTIONS AND CONCERNS 1. From Corporations to Going Concerns 2. From Exchange to Transactions (1) Bargaining Transactions (2) Managerial Transactions (3) Rationing Transactions (4) Institutions (5) Assets versus Wealth (6) Liberty and Exposure (7) Time (8) Transactional Meaning of Value (9) Performance, Forbearance, Avoidance (10) Strategic and Routine Transactions (11) Negotiational Psychology (III) IDEAS (IV) CONFLICT OF INTERESTS (V) ECONOMIC BACKBONE OF HISTORY CHAPTER III. QUESNAY (I) THE NATURAL ORDER (II) THE MORAL ORDER CHAPTER IV. HUME AND PEIRCE (I) SCARCITY (II) FROM HABIT TO CUSTOM (III) PRAGMATISM (IV) FROM NATURE TO GOING CONCERNS CHAPTER V. ADAM SMITH (I) SELF-INTEREST AND MUTUALITY (II) LIBERTY, SECURITY, EQUALITY, PROPERTY (III) LABOR-PAIN, LABOR-POWER, LABOR SAVED 1. Cause of Value (1) Cause of Use-Value (2) Cause of Scarcity-Value a. Psychological and Proprietary Scarcity b. Liberty and Abundance 2. Regulator of Value 3. Measure of Value (IV) SOCIAL UTILITY CHAPTER VI. BENTHAM VERSUS BLACKSTONE CHAPTER VII. MALTHUS CHAPTER VIII. EFFICIENCY AND SCARCITY (I) MATERIALS AND OWNERSHIP (II) REAL AND NOMINAL VALUE (III) AVERAGES (IV) INPUT-OUTPUT, OUTGO-INCOME (V) FROM CIRCULATION TO REPETITION (VI) ABILITY AND OPPORTUNITY 1. Physical and Legal Possession 2. Choices 3. Opportunity (1) Cost of Service and Cost of Product (2) Value of Service and Value of Product (3) Inaccessible Alternatives — Free Will and Free Choice (4) From Division of Labor to Association of Labor and Public Purpose (5) The Law of Substitution (6) Limits of Coercion (7) From Crusoe to Going Concerns (8) Bargaining Power (VII) RlCARDO AND MALTHUS (VIII) MARX AND PROUDHON (IX) MENGER, WIESER, FISHER, FETTER (X) FROM ABSOLUTISM TO RELATIVITY CHAPTER IX. FUTURITY (I) THE NEGOTIABILITY OF DEBT 1. Debts and Commodities 2. Debt Market and Debt Pyramid 3. Property and Property Rights 4. Corporeal, Incorporeal, Intangible Property (1) Time and the Measure of Time (2) Justification and Economics (3) Duty and Debt, Right and Credit (4) Exchangeability (5) Double Meaning of Credit (6) Intangible Property (7) From Corporeal to Intangible Property (8) Commodity Market and Debt Market (9) Discount and Profit a. Two Kinds of Price b. Two Kinds of Manufacture c. Commodity Price and Short-Time Price d. The Bank of England (10) From Psychological to Institutional Economics (11) Separation of Debt Markets a. Money and Capital b. Capital-Yield and Bank-Rate (a) Manufacturer or Merchant? (b) Savings and the Market Value of Savings c. From Single Causation to Multiple Causation (II) RELEASE OF DEBT (III) CREATION OF DEBT (IV) SCARCITY OF DEBT 1. Scarcity of Metallic Money 2. Capital and Capitals 3. Scarcity of Waiting (V) INTEREST AND PROFIT DISCOUNT (VI) THE TRANSACTIONAL SYSTEM OF MONEY AND VALUE (VII) THE MARGIN FOR PROFIT 1. The Share of Profit (1) Consumption and Savings (2) Dividends-Lag (3) Sales-Lag 2. Sales Forecast 3. Employment-Lag 4. Supply and Demand (1) Consumer's Law of Supply and Demand (2) The Business Law of Supply and Demand 5. Margins (1) Total Receipts and Gross Sales (2) The Operating Margin (3) Profit and Loss Margin (4) The Taxable Margin (5) The Financial Margin (6) The Price Margin (7) The Profit Cushion (8) Vested Rights and Profit Margins (9) Margins and Costs of Production (10) Sequence and Elasticity (11) Summary (VIII) A WORLD PAY COMMUNITY 1. Long-Term Rates of Interest and Prices 2. Short-Term Rates of Interest and Prices 3. From Marginal Productivity to Capital-Yield 4. Open Market Rates and Customers' Rates 5. The Risk Discount—Overindebtedness and Depression 6. Experimental Tests 7. War Cycles 8. Automatic and Managed Recovery (IX) SOCIETY 1. From Costs to Shares 2. The Whole and Its Parts (1) Mechanism, Organism, Concern (2) Velocity of Repetition 3. Strategic and Routine Transactions (1) Efficiency (2) Scarcity (3) Concerns This book deals with a variety of issues including matters of method, particularly John R. Commons' pragmatism, the role of scarcity and conflict in economics as opposed to a presumed harmony of interest, and the importance of custom and common law as opposed to individual pleasures and pains. John R. Commons ; With A New Introduction By Malcolm Rutherford. Reprint. Originally Published: New York : Macmillan, 1934. Includes Bibliographical References.