I can best explain this with an example:Unome wrote: How does efficiency in pulleys work anyway? My logic (which may not make sense since the system is stable) was that as the rope is pulled through the pulley, it loses 10% of its tension, so the right side ropes need more tension than the left side.
In the following image, the left pulley is assumed to be 100% efficient and the right pulley 1% efficient (some arbitrary number showing great inefficiency)
You can clearly see that the left pulley would only remain stationary if the two masses are equal; this isn't the case with the right pulley. For example, if the source of the right pulley's inefficiency was rust (illustrated rather horribly in Paint), then it is reasonable to assume that the right pulley could remain stable as shown, with unequal masses on either side.
That is the basis for my reasoning that pulley inefficiency does carry over into the stationary case.