Institutional Economics: Its Place in Political Economy, Volume 1

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.