On page 134 of the Legal Foundations of Capitalism (section VI), Commons focuses on the idea of working rules. He first states that the human will operates within certain limits and within these limits there is a degree of opportunity within which we can operate. Working rules are defined as "collective will", "social mind" or " government of laws and not men". Commons acknowledges that there are other rules including mechanism and scarcity. Mechanism and scarcity operate through physics and the reality of a limited amount of resources between humans and the natural world. Working rules is the relationship between human beings not mediated by mechanism and scarcity. Commons is critical of the idea that we start with individual liberty and freedom that are pre-existing rights and then move towards what rules will respect these pre-existing rights from nature. Instead. Commons finds that the working rules are established by human beings to mediate co...
This blog has been setup to explore the ideas and philosophy of the American institutional economist John R. Commons.