The Genesis and Changes of Property as Portrayed by Old Institutionalists

The portrayal of property of the old institutionalists J. R. Commons (1862–1945) and T. Veblen (1857–1929) is presented last, even though it evolved at the beginning of the twentieth century and thus lies between the philosophical and economic approaches discussed in the previous sections. The reason for discussing old institutionalism last lies in its exhaustive analysis of the philosophers, as well as of the neoclassicist models existing at the time. In their approach, old institutionalists point out common ground between philosophy and neoclassicism, namely that property is reduced to the relationship between man and object. The representatives of old institutionalism instead consider interaction between people as central, rather than that of man and object. The motivating force behind man’s actions is not, however, self-interest which would be isolated from other agents in the economy. In lieu of self-interest, Commons places the “going concern”, which is the imaginary sum of individual coherent wills (will-in action) (Kröner (1930:12f). This rather sociological view of human behavior is represented through the motive of envy in Veblen’s work.