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There have been many disputes in the history of value theory. Since the 1980s, a controversy has flared up between the Marxist supporters of an equilibrium approach - which stresses that the capitalist economy either is in a state of, or tends towards, equilibrium - and those Marxists who argue that the concept of equilibrium is theoretically alien to Marx's theory. For these latter authors, not only equilibrium but also the deviations from it (disequilibrium) are only powerful ideological notions without any relevance for an economic theory of the real world. The capitalist economy does not tend towards equilibrium but towards crises through the succession of economic cycles. These two views are radically different. The terms "(dis)equilibrium" and "non-equilibrium" economics underline the difference. The dispute has not been settled yet, either way.
The debate has focused mainly on two aspects: the so-called transformation problem and the tendential fall of the profit rate. In both cases, from the perspective of equilibrium and concomitant simultaneism (a theorization of the economy as if time did not exist, i.e., where everything happens simultaneously) many inconsistencies can be found in Marx. But from the perspective of non-equilibrium and concomitant temporalism (a theorization of the economy in which time in its irreversibility plays an indispensable role) these inconsistencies disappear.2 The aim of this paper is not to revisit the debate. Suffice it to mention that temporalism recommends itself for the simple fact that it makes possible the solution of those inconsistencies that are introduced in Marx's analysis if time is cancelled, i.e., if one is interested in a theory of the real ("timefull") world rather than in a theory of a timeless (virtual) world. Neither is this article meant to address a different but related question: if the non-equilibrium and temporal approach is chosen, if the economy and thus society are neither in a state of, nor tend towards, equilibrium, how can the economy and thus society reproduce themselves? This question has been dealt with in a different work (Carchedi, forthcoming, a, b). In that work, a conception of dialectics as a method of social research is submitted that accounts for both the reproduction and the possibility of supersession of capitalist society in the absence of the notion of (dis)equilibrium. Rather,...