ABSTRACT
Serious terminological ambiguities and conceptual obscurities have been found to exist, some of them curable, others beyond hope of clarification. This chapter deals with “statics and dynamics” and the truly kaleidoscopic variety of meanings that have been given to these learned terms. Of course there is no reason why classical economics should not have been both “static” and “dynamic”—whatever this may mean—, static in some parts and dynamic in others. But the classical writers themselves did not indicate that they were conscious of employing two different approaches—except perhaps when they were speculating about future developments. After listing the statements in which 39 authors attempted to say what they meant by Statics and Dynamics, and after discussing another group of economists whose work was characterized by other writers as either Statics or Dynamics.
