Economic essays

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1753623200

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136107

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Economic essays

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: viii, 368 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: The relation between statics and dynamics / John Maurice Clark

Collection:: Economics Books

THE RELATION BETWEEN STATICS AND DYNAMICS 47 differs from statics not merely in its conclusions but also in its problems. In pursuing this question we shall first look at the origin of statics, finding it in one out of a considerable number of prob- lems with which classical economics dealt. The development, however, of a complete static society, causes statics to reach out into the realms of the other problems, where this static method of approach is not so clearly indicated. It also appears that the conclusion of the more developed statics—the level of static equilibrium—is, in the earlier forms of the study, essentially an assumption based on observation; and the assumptions of the later form of the theory are, in a real sense, deduced from it, being the conditions necessary to bring it about. Thus the rela- tions of premise to conclusion may with propriety be reversed, or the entire structure be regarded as an assumption, to be justi- fied by its usefulness in interpreting facts of experience. So far as dynamic conditions differ from static in mechanical ways only, static conclusions may be converted into dynamic by quantitative allowances; but so far as the differences are qualitative or “chemical” in character—to use the figure employed by John Stuart Mill,* the more far-reaching methods are indi- cated, and new inductions are likely to be necessary. In examining the assumptions proper to dynamics, these are found in many cases to differ from static premises in qualitative or “chemical” ways; including the dynamic character of human nature and the evolution of institutions. The result is to broaden the scope and modify the character of the study. The work of J. B. Clark includes examples of both the narrower deductive and the broader qualitative modifications of statics. The former are found in his Essentials of Economic Theory, while the most challenging fragments of the broader type of study are contained in his earlier work: The Philosophy of Wealth. If dynamics must be built largely by new inductions, what will be left of statics? In the first place, dynamics will never answer all its problems, and the static answers, provisional as they are, will to that extent continue to fill their former place. In the second place, in relation to the original static problem of levels of prices, much can be done by quantitative modifications of 1 John Stuart Mill: A System of Logic, Book III, Chap. VI; Book VI, Chap VAL ol _ B. Clark also uses this figure. See The Philosophy of

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Economic essays

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation