The Common Sense of Political Economy  Wicksteed, Philip H.
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London: Macmillan and Co. Pub. Date 1st edition. 10 of 23
Summary.—The market is the characteristic phenomenon of the
economic life and it presents the central problem of Economics.
It is the machinery by which objective equilibrium in the
marginal significance of exchangeable things is secured and
maintained in a catallactic society. Equilibrium exists when the
commodity occupies the same place at the margin on the scales of
all who possess it, and is higher at the margin on all their
scales than on the scales of any one who does not possess it.
The equilibrium price of any commodity is the price which if at
once established would produce equilibrium without oscillations;
and it is determined by the quantity of the commodity at command
and the composition of the collective scale. It is the interest
of each dealer to know this price, and any erroneous estimate of
it he may form, while pl