Labor and Administration

John Rogers Commons

Jan. 1913 · Macmillan

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John R. Commons was an American economist, educator, and social investigator who believed strongly in the ideal of human equality. He is regarded as an institutionalist because of his interest in how institutions including trade unions, governments, and businesses evolved and interacted in a capitalistic system. As a labor economist, he developed a theory of labor struggle in which the collective actions of unions would lead to human betterment without the dire consequences of a Marxist revolution. Commons studied at Oberlin College and Johns Hopkins University. His interest in real-world institutions began when he joined the typographers' union as a student. Later, while teaching at Wesleyan, he often discussed current issues with his students and took them on field trips to examine issues firsthand. Commons took a chair of sociology at Syracuse University, where he developed the theory that owners of private property use their power to encroach on the rights and welfare of others. The wealthy benefactors at Syracuse, uncomfortable with this analysis, withdrew their financial support for the chair. Commons then spent several years working on various government commissions before he joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin in 1904. There, in conjunction with his students, he published his classic 11-volume Documentary History of American Industrial Society (1910). It was followed by his best-known work, The History of Labor in the United States (1918), which chronicled the role of unions working for equality of the "economic classes" of workers and owners.