Order and process in institutionalist thought: Commons and Ayres

lawson, clive;

Process is a central category in institutionalist economics. Conceptions of process,
often bound up with ideas of historical time and circular or cumulative causation,
are regularly used to distinguish institutionalism from mainstream theorising
and to highlight similarities or complementarities with other heterodox positions.
Discussions of institutionalist ideas of process, however, have tended to concentrate
on the contributions of Thorstein Veblen to the exclusion of those of other major
institutionalists. In contrast, this article considers two other important contributors
to institutionalist thought: John Commons and Clarence Ayres. The differences
between these authors� works are often thought to articulate some kind of a fault
line in institutionalist thought, highlighting very different and indeed incompatible
positions. I argue that although their overall projects are clearly very different,
if attention is focussed on the general ontological presuppositions of each author,
there exists a good measure of common ground between them. This is especially the
case if comparisons are made, in line with the focus of this special issue, between
their conceptions of process and order. From an ontological perspective, moreover,
those aspects of their accounts that at first appear at odds, are rather shown to be
quite compatible and even usefully complementary