“An institution is defined as collective action in control, liberation and expansion of individual action. Its forms are unorganized custom and organized going concerns. The individual action is participation in bargaining, managing and rationing”
Source: "Institutional Economics," 1931, p. 648
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John R. Commons 26
United States institutional economist and labor historian 1862–1945Related quotes
“The actual participants in industry under individualism are prompted to action by”
Property (1935)
Context: The actual participants in industry under individualism are prompted to action by the following combination of incentives: desire for an income, desire for a higher income, desire for security, satisfaction received from shouldering responsibility or from wielding power, the joy of participation in creative activity, and the desire for applause and prestige.... And all these motivations may be conserved and strengthened under socialism.

Vintage, p. 61
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1965)
Context: Having analyzed these traits, we can now advance a definition of propaganda — not an exhaustive definition, unique and exclusive of all others, but at least a partial one: Propaganda is a set of methods employed by an organized group that wants to bring about the active or passive participation in its actions of a mass of individuals, psychologically unified through psychological manipulations and incorporated in an organization.

Source: "Institutional Economics," 1931, p. 648

Source: 1970s-1980s, The Limits Of Organization (1974), Chapter 1, Rationality: Individual And Social, p. 16

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Introduction p. I - XII

“Influences of various kinds conspire to increase corporate action and decrease individual action.”
The Man versus the State (1884), The Coming Slavery
Context: Influences of various kinds conspire to increase corporate action and decrease individual action. And the change is being on all sides aided by schemers, each of whom thinks only of his pet plan and not at all of the general reorganization which his plan, joined with others such, are working out. It is said that the French Revolution devoured its own children. Here, an analogous catastrophe seems not unlikely. The numerous socialistic changes made by Act of Parliament, joined with the numerous others presently to be made, will by-and-by be all merged in State-socialism—swallowed in the vast wave which they have little by little raised.
"But why is this change described as 'the coming slavery'?," is a question which many will still ask. The reply is simple. All socialism involves slavery.
Source: A stakeholder approach to strategic management, 1984, p. 52

"The Origins and Effects of Our Morals: A Problem for Science", in The Essence of Hayek (1984)
1980s and later