This is about subsection (3) duty and debt and right and credit pages 410-413.
Commons, who gives a lot of credit to him, next tracks a second confusion by Henry Dunning Macleod in his book “Economics for Beginners” from 1879 which caused him to be written out of the history of economic thought. His conception of transactions and future time. Macleod argued that under common law a right to receive money from a debtor comes into existence now for a creditor but the debtor's duty to pay will only come into effect later when the due date arrives. This is a fallacy as both come into existence at the same time. Why is this important? It is important because a creditor can sell that duty to pay to someone else so it must be in existence now.
Common wants to correct this problem by stating that in a transaction two duties are created and introducing the notion of economic status.The duties are the “duty of performance” and the duty of payment” The buyer/creditor must perform by providing the goods or service as required in the agreement. The seller/debtor has a duty to make the payment as required under the agreement in the timeframe as written or agreed to. Therefore, we have a pattern of Hohfeldian rights and duties that come into existence.
These also create an economic status amongst buyers and sellers. Economic status is the “adjustment of behavior to social expectations” or “expectation of working rules within which the individual adjusts his present”. Therefore, status is not just in the mind of the individual but is a socially recognized expectation through the operation of the working rules of the going concern. This doesn't mean that disputes wont arise over the interpretation of working rules and they certainly do arise and must be responded to by the relevant going concern which may give rise to a new understanding or set of working rules. The buyer is in the economic status of having a security of security and the seller is in the economic status of having to conform to expectations and vice versa. This to Commons is the core of what economics is about exchange and expectations regarding working rules.
At the end of this section, Commons affirms in general that Macleod got it right that economics should not be about to the exchange of physical things but the exchange of property rights with a view to the future.
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