The use of the term equilibrium, therefore, is not just an analogy but is adopted here in the sense of a state of affairs in which all or most agents, in spite of-what they may think of the collective outcome, have not found adequate incentives to behave differently and to change that outcome in any significant way.

DEFINE: Defines economic equilibrium not as metaphor but as a precise condition where no agent has adequate incentive to change their behavior. XREF: Connects to game theory's Nash equilibrium concept and collective action problems.

Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking…, loc. 2109