science

John R. Commons

John R. Commons is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand John R. Commons rather than just read about it. In short: 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. Early years John R.

Key takeaways

John R. Commons belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect John R. Commons to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of John R. Commons from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

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.

Early years 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. 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. After graduating from Oberlin College, Commons did two years of graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University, where he studied under Richard T. Ely, but left without a degree. After appointments at Oberlin and Indiana University, Commons began teaching at Syracuse University in 1895. In spring 1899, Syracuse dismissed him as a radical. Eventually Commons re-entered academia at the University of Wisconsin in 1904. 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. He was an advocate of temperance legislation and was active in the national Prohibition Party. 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.

Career

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". He even suggested applying the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution to force Southern States to allow African Americans to vote. Commons 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. 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. Commons also coined the term "human resource" in 1893, laying a foundation for the fields of human resources and human resource management. In 1906, Commons co-founded the American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL) with other economists. 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. Commons 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. 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. The first national honor society in economics, Omicron Delta Gamma (ODG), was formed on May 7, 1915, by the merger of Harvard University's Undergraduate Society of Economics with the University of Wisconsin's Order of Artus, an economics student society modeled on King Arthur's Knights of the Roundtable; Wisconsin's group was advised by Commons. 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. Commons considered the Scottish economist Henry Dunning Macleod to be the "originator" of Institutional economics. Commons was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1936.

Death and legacy

Commons 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. 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. His former home, The John R. and Nell Commons House, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The John R. Commons Award is awarded biennially to an outstanding economist in recognition of academic achievements and for service both to the economics profession and to Omicron Delta Epsilon. The award is given at American Economic Association conference where the honoree presents a "Commons Lecture" which is later published in The American Economist. Over the years, the Commons Award has served as an indicator of recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Nine Commons Award winners have won the Nobel Prize; most recently, Claudia Goldin (2009) won the Nobel in 2023.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John R. Commons

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John R. Commons claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to John R. Commons before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about John R. Commons ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of John R. Commons

In research: John R. Commons appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses John R. Commons in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: John R. Commons is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1862 births, 1945 deaths, 19th-century American economists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John R. Commons outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study John R. Commons in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what John R. Commons means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain John R. Commons out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is John R. Commons in simple terms?

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. Early years John R.

Why does John R. Commons matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study John R. Commons?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on John R. Commons.