Realizing a Just World: John R. Commons’ Development of the Concept of Transactions

How can we achieve a “just world” where unfair and unjust transactions do not take place? In the Legal Foundations of Capitalism, Commons explored the realization of a just world by “securing the correlation” between rights and duties and “stabilizing expectations” through authoritative transactions since the rights and duties of parties do not coincide in unauthorized transactions. On the other hand, rationing transactions in Institutional Economics contained various content. In this article, I reclassify rationing transactions into three categories. Among them, I believe that Commons explored the realization of a just world through “reasonable” rationing transactions.