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APPENDIX 3
A METHODOLOGICAL NOTE ON THE PRINCIPLE
OF CUMULATION
In social science we have been drawing heavily on the notions and theories of the
much farther developed natural sciences, particularly physics. The notion of equilibrium,
for instance, has been in all our reasoning for centuries. Actually it is present In most
research of the present day, even when it is not formally introduced. In most social
research we have restricted our utilization of the equilibrium notion to that simple and
static variant of it, the stabU equilibrium. It is this equilibrium notion which is implicit
in the sociological constructions of “maladjustment” and “adjustment” and all their
several synonyms or near-synonyms, where equilibrium is thought of as having a virtual
reality in determining the direction of change.*^ We propose the utilization of other
equilibrium notions besides this simplest one. For dynamic analysis of the process of
change in social relations, it is highly desirable that we disengage our minds from the
stable equilibrium scheme of thinking. The other types of equilibrium notions are often
better descriptions of social reality than the stable one.
If we succeed in placing a pencil upright on its end, it is also in equilibrium, but an
unstable one, a “labile status” of balancing forces, as we easily find if we touch it. No
“adjustment,” “adaptation,” or “accommodation” toward the original position will
follow the application of a push, but only an accelerated movement away from the
original state of balance. A third type of equilibrium is present when a pencil Is
rolling on a plane surface: it may come to rest anywhere. A fourth type is what we might
call “created equilibrium,” that is, arranging a disordered pile of pencils into a box
by intelligent social engineering.
The most important need is to give place in our hypothetical explanatory scheme to a
rational recognition of the cumulation of forces. In one branch of social science,
economics, these various types of equilibrium notions have lately been used with great
advantage. The principle of cumulation has given us, for the first time, something which
approaches a real theory of economic dynamics.*^ In Chapter 3, Section 7, we referred
to the theory of the “vicious circle” as a main explanatory scheme for this inquiry into
the Negro problem; the scheme reappears in every part of our book. The following
• These equilibrium concepts have been used also as vehicles for introducing hidden valu-
ations—i.e., bias—into research; see Appendix 2. Our interest in this appendix is directed
only upon their usefulness as theoretical tools. To explain these other notions it is convenient
to think in terms of analogies. The stable equilibrium is like a hanging pendulum, unmov-
ing, and with no tendency to move unless jolted.
**
For a simplified model of cumulative economic causation, see Gunnar Myrdal, Monetary
Equilibrium (1939), pp. 24 flF.
1065
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