Beyond Legal Relations: Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld's Influence on American Institutionalism

Abstract

This paper documents Hohfeld's influence on interwar American institutionalism. We will mainly focus on three leading figures of the movement: John Rogers Commons, Robert Lee Hale, and John Maurice Clark. They regarded Hohfeld's contribution on jural relations as a preliminary step toward the understanding of the adversarial nature of legal rights. Albeit with substantial differences in style, method and emphasis, Hohfeld's schema provided a powerful analytical and rhetorical tool for their analysis.

Keywords:

• J. M. Clark
• J. R. Commons
• R. Lee Hale
• W. N. Hohfeld
• institutionalism