John R. Commons’s Industrial Relations: Its Development and Relevance to a Post-Industrial Society

Abstract

John R. Commons worked out principles that can provide perspectives on current labor market problems because many of the problems he faced have re-appeared. This article reviews the development of those principles as Commons worked out continually more complex variations on themes developed early in his life. It shows the contemporary pertinence of what he worked out in two ways. First it illustrates the application to current labor market issues of his key concepts-- transactions, competitive menace, limiting factor, public purpose and reasonable value. Second, it points out that authors seeking solutions to current labor problems in the United States are independently re-discovering policies that Commons proposed a hundred years ago.

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