It Does Exactly what it Says on its Cover: Commons’s <i>Legal Foundations</i> as an Inspirational Text for Legal Institutionalism

As it says on its cover, John R. Commons’s book on The Legal Foundations of Capitalism examines the legal groundings of capitalist systems. This essay notes that this is distinctive in the history of economic thought, contrasting with the work of Karl Marx, Max Weber, and other leading theorists. Among the characteristic features of Commons’s approach is his emphasis on the legal rules governing credit and finance. Accordingly, Commons should be regarded as one of the pioneers of what has recently been described as legal institutionalism. This approach regards law as basic and constitutive, rather than a surface or superstructural phenomenon, in modern economies under the rule of law