Maggs Bros.

The scarce first book by the American economist John R. Commons in which he first outlined his conception of institutional economics that would be more fully developed in his subsequent works.

The reception of the book was controversial, in particular due to Commons’s treatment of the question of monopoly. ‘The idea that monopolists could raise prices by restricting supply, today standard textbook knowledge, was considered outrageous at the time Commons’ book was banished from economics bibliographies and reading lists. Commons was let go from his teaching position at Indiana University. He went to Syracuse University in New York, but within a few years he was fired from there as well. For five years, from 1899 to 1904, Commons would not find an academic position’ (Haring and Douglas, Economists and the Powerful, p. 9).

From the library of the distinguished American demographer and historian of economic thought Joseph J. Spengler (1902-1991), with his characteristic annotations to rear endpapers and occasional pencilled underling and marginal highlighting throughout.