ABSTRACT
Controversy over equilibrium analysis is deconstructed, identifying several dichotomies, including equilibrium as an analytical tool and a definition of reality; two different types of realism; study of an actual economy and of a pure a-institutional conceptual model; ontological and epistemological considerations. Further complications include the complexity of the economy, multiple positions on each point; and the pragmatist nature of practice. The economics of disequilibration, disequilibrium and equilibration is advanced as potentially richer than that of determinacy, existence, uniqueness and stability of equilibrium solutions, though neither group has superior ontological status over the other. Also praised is the scope of Vilfredo Pareto’s equilibrium analysis.
