Exit, Voice, and Loyalty

Hirschman’s work changes how you see the world. It illuminates yesterday, today, and tomorrow… His most important [book]. – Cass R. Sunstein * New York Review of Books *
A 126-page burst of lucidity… [Hirschman’s] masterwork. – Roger Lowenstein * Wall Street Journal *
One of the masterpieces of contemporary political thought. – Malcolm Gladwell * New Yorker *
This unusual and subtle book is…an exercise in interdisciplinary analysis focused on the interaction between market and non-market forces affecting the process of development and decline… Professor Hirschman develops a theory of loyalty as a key factor in the interaction between voice and exit: loyalty is shown to postpone exit and to make voice more effective through the possibility of exit. * The Economic Journal *
This is an imaginative little book. Its message should be of use to economists, political scientists, and all those interested in policy questions related to these areas. Hirschman starts his argument by assuming that in time all organizations (firms, bureaus, political parties, governments, and so on) develop slack and experience a deterioration in the quality of their output. The clients of a declining organization have two options for reversing this trend: exit and voice. And much of the book is devoted to an explication of the ways in which these options operate, their relative advantages and weaknesses, the interdependence between them… It is in these discussions of current problems and institutions, however, that I find the book most rewarding. His basic point, that there exists a symbiosis between exit and voice, is certainly valid and significant. Its importance gets driven home by the way Hirschman applies the idea to various current issues. One emerges from the book feeling he has obtained a new analytic insight into policy questions which can be applied again and again. – Dennis C. Mueller * Public Policy *
Professor Hirschman’s small book is bursting with new ideas. The economist has typically assumed that dissatisfaction with an organization’s product is met by withdrawal of demand, while the political scientist thinks rather of the protests possible within the organization. Hirschman argues that both processes are at work and demonstrates beautifully by analysis and example that their interaction has surprising implications, a theory that illuminates strikingly many important economic and political phenomena of the day. The whole argument is developed with an extraordinary richness of reference to many societies and cultures. – Kenneth J. Arrow
There is, of course, no substitute for a mind as original, playful, subtle, and fresh as Hirschman’s. – Stanley Hoffmann
This is a marvelously perceptive essay which illuminates some of the most interesting economic and social questions of our time. I have read it with enormous interest and admiration, and the further pleasure that one has in being with an author who can think things through. – John Kenneth Galbraith
I read Exit, Voice, and Loyalty with absolute fascination and found that it pulled together, in organized form, many random glimmerings that I had previously understood only dimly. – Joseph Kraft

Albert O. Hirschman was Professor of Social Science, Emeritus, at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, following a career of prestigious appointments, honors, and awards. Perhaps the most widely known and admired of his many books are Exit, Voice, and Loyalty and The Passions and the Interests.

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