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

[8] Commons' early work exemplified his desire to unite Christian ideals with the emerging social sciences of sociology and economics.

He was a frequent contributor to Kingdom magazine, was a founder of the American Institute for Christian Sociology, and authored a book in 1894 called Social Reform and the Church.

[13] By his Wisconsin years, Commons' scholarship had become less moralistic and more empirical, and he moved away from a religious viewpoint in his ethics and sociology.

Commons believed that carefully crafted legislation could create social change; that view led him to be known as a socialist radical and incrementalist.

[15] He even suggested applying the Thirteenth amendment to the Constitution to force Southern States to allow African Americans to vote.

[16] He continued the strong American tradition in institutional economics by such figures as the economist and social theorist Thorstein Veblen.

[17] The institutional theory was closely related to his remarkable successes in fact-finding and drafting legislation on a wide range of social issues for the state of Wisconsin.

His graduate student, John A. Fitch, wrote The Steel Workers, a classic depiction of a key industry in early 20th-century America.

[23] Commons was the mentor of many outstanding economists and has been credited with originating the "Wisconsin Idea," in which university faculty serve as advisors to state government.