Equilibrium and Disequilibrium: Misplaced Concreteness and Disguised Politics

Abstract

Economists have used the notion of equilibrium in a variety of contexts and for a variety of purposes; in proceeding from one topic to another some have failed to note transformations in the use made of it and in the meanings read into the term. Not a few who have sensed incongruities, fallacies or outright misuse turned against all “equilibrium economics,” heaping abuse on any type of analysis that employed the notion. The most literal use of equilibrium or disequilibrium in the sense of equal or unequal weights on the two arms of a scale, without any analytical, explicatory, predictive or evaluative connotation, occurs only in connection with practically measurable quantities, such as income and expenditure in a budget, exports and imports in a trade balance, trade items and long-term capital transfers in a balance of payments.