Before revision:  In doing so, we clarify the speculations and broad claims made in the literature about such a general flux--force relation  .
After revision:  In doing so, we clarify the speculations and broad claims made in the literature about such a general flux--force relation . As a further consequence we show that, in contrast to common belief, the second law of thermodynamics does not require the currents and the forces of biochemical reaction networks to be always aligned .