Economic essays

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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

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Document type:: Monograph

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

Collection:: Economics Books

48 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK static formulas. And in the third place, throughout dynamics there will arise situations which will be clarified by a reference to a set of static assumptions—not necessarily a complete static economy—for purposes of comparison. This will probably, more often than not, take the form of that kind of inverse deduction already mentioned; the reasoning running thus: to bring about such-and-such results, such-and-such conditions are necessary. Actual conditions differ in such-and-such respects. Hence we should expect actual results to differ in such-and-such general ways. Or, if actual results differ in given fashion from the static, a probability arises that the difference is due to the dis- crepancy of conditions from the static ones. This is a use of static reasoning eminently suited to dynamic studies. reo Deo 2. Orin of Statics The contrast which we are considering is between realistic economics and economics simplified by the method of static abstraction, which studies levels of equilibrium under abstract conditions. These make equilibrium possible (1) by eliminating elements of disturbance and (2) by confining the adaptive forces and processes to those which are self-limiting and not cumulative in character. Static economics, of one sort at least, is complete in its main outlines. It is not wholly past the stage of controversy, nor of further developments, but the controversies are largely matters of proper formulation rather than of the essential logic of the main structure; and the further developments, aside from reformulations, are matters of detailed refinement whose accuracy is hardly justified in view of the wide gap between the assumed conditions on which the whole structure rests and the reality in the interpretation of which its ultimate service must lie. The significant field for present work lies in the development of more realistic economics, which may be defined, in contradistinction to statics, as dynamics. Unlike statics, dynamics is in its infancy, and very possibly is destined always to remain in that stage, on account of the fact that conditions change so fast and so endlessly that analysis and interpretation cannot overtake them. But the difference between statics and dynamics is not merely a matter of simplification of the data of the problem. This simplification has its roots in something deeper; a delimitation of the problem itself. Hence we should be prepared, in stepping out-

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