Régulation and John R. Commons’ “Reasonable Values”

In his classic book on régulation theory, Aglietta (1976, p. 109) references J. R. Commons’ book on labor history in the United States. Théret (2002; 2008) also uses Commons’ work as a foundation for the theoretical development of régulation theory. The purpose of this study is not to retrospectively review Commons as a source of régulation theory but to enrich and reinterpret the core concept of régulation theory, that is, régulation. We draw four main themes from Commons’ main work, Institutional Economics (1934): 1) régulation as a dynamic concept containing both the past and future; 2) régulation expressed through private and collective actions in the present; 3) the ethical role of “Commonsian régulationists” (Théret, 2008), which we call “investigators,” in their field; and 4) the riskiness of investigators identifying or categorizing themselves as micro-, mezzo-, or macro-economists.