Change within Permanence: Time and the Bivalent Logic of Economic Analysis

Abstract

The logic of economic inquiry requires two distinct research programs. One program treats economic life in terms of invariant formal categories across time and place. The other program treats the continual of novelty and turbulence through time through human interaction. These programs are not commensurable: one can’t be reduced to the other. The former program must be conveyed by a theory of equilibrium; the latter program requires a process based theory of emergent phenomena. Where Roy Weintraub articulated a neo-Walrasian research program in his General Equilibrium Analysis, here I sketch a complementary neo-Mengerian program. In presenting this sketch, I also explain that needless analytical confusion and antagonism can result from a failure to recognize that economic analysis requires two distinct research programs. As a historical side-bar, Carl Menger probably recognized this situation, as evidenced by his correspondence with Léon Walras.

Keywords: Carl Menger, Léon Walras, emergence, scientific research programs, social ontology, time and economics

JEL Classification: B1, B4, B5, D8, E1