An Analysis of J.R. Commons's Changing Views on the Role of Sovereignty in the Political Economy

Abstract

This study distills the economic and current signifi cance of John Rogers Commons's political economy. It compares descriptions of three main works that discuss "sovereignty"-namely, A Sociological View of Sovereignty (SVS), Legal Foundations of Capitalism (LFC), and Institutional Economics (IE); we find that the role of sovereignty in his theory changed dramatically. First, in the period from SVS (1899-1900) to LFC (1924), the behavioral principle of sovereignty changed signifi cantly from the standpoint of natural rights, which implies the permanence of privileged customs, to the "pragmatic philosophy" of the courts. Second, in the IE manuscripts (1927-8), sovereignty is a perspective highly capable of explaining socioeconomic systems. Additional descriptions between the time of the IE manuscripts (1927-8) and that of IE (1934) emphasize the importance of the "function" of sovereignty in pragmatic investigations of economic disputes. Here, we distill the economic and current significance of IE. First, value theory (which constructs values institutionally and collectively) analyzes sovereignty and joint evaluations, and not by looking fixedly at labor value or utility. Second, sovereignty is inseparable from an analysis of economic transactions. Third, this study shows the elements of a "deliberate space" in which sovereignty and economic interests act in concert.