The papal encyclicals on social problems. Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno, and Mater et Magistra, are readily available in pamphlets published by The American Press or the Paulist Press. The best introduction to the Fabian socialists is still George Bernard Shaw, ed., Fabian Essays (1948). Nearly all of John A. Hobson's books have been reprinted in hardbound editions; the only one available in paperback is Imperialism (1965). Three major works by Richard H. Tawney are available in inexpensive editions: Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1947), The Acquisitive Society (1960), and Equality (1961).
The best of Thorstein Veblen's thought is in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899; published in paperback 1954) and The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904); his essays in The Place of Science in Modern Civilization (1919) are also interesting. Allan G. Gruchy, Modern Economic Thought (1947) is a laudatory survey of Veblen and other institutionalists. Gruchy's Contemporary Economic Thought: The Contribution of Neo-Institutional Economists (1972) expands on the earlier volume. Rexford G. Tugwell, ed.. The Trend of Economics (1924) presents essays by the leading American institutional economists that emphasize both their criticisms of orthodox economics and their advocacy of economic reforms. Two books by J. M. Clark, Preface to Social Economics (1936) and The Social Control of Business (1939), develop those themes further, as do the essays of Wesley Mitchell in The Backward Art of Spending Money (1937). John R. Commons was a prolific, obtuse, and turgid writer; his books are almost impossible to read— with one exception, his fascinating autobiography, Mysc//(1934; published in paperback 1963). For contemporary institutional economics in the United States look at recent issues of the Journal of Economic Issues. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, et al., eds.. The Elgar Companion to Institutional and Evolutionary Economics is insightful and thorough.