p. 243
“

But institutional economics is the field of the public interest in private ownership, which shows itself behavioristically in buying and selling, borrowing and lending, hiring and firing, leasing and renting. The private interests become the field of intangible yet quantitative and measurable rights, duties, liberties and exposures to the liberties of others. These are various aspects of rights of ownership. What we buy and sell is not material things and services but ownership of materials and services. The correlation of engineering economics, home economics, and institutional economics makes up the whole of the science of political economics.

— John R. Commons

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "But institutional economics is the field of the public interest in private ownership, which shows itself behavioristically in buying and selling, borrowing and lending, hiring and firing, leasing and renting. The private interests become the field of intangible yet quantitative and measurable rights, duties, liberties and exposures to the liberties of others. These are various aspects of rights of ownership. What we buy and sell is not material things and services but ownership of materials and services. The correlation of engineering economics, home economics, and institutional economics makes up the whole of the science of political economics." in the context of "p. 243" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "John R. Commons" (Quotes, "Institutional economics," 1936: John R. Commons, "Institutional Economics." The American Economic Review 26.1 (1936): 237-249.) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
John R. Commons

About John R. Commons

John Rogers Commons (October 13, 1862 – May 11, 1945) was an American institutional economist, progressive and labor historian at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.