My first reading of this material occurred in college as a requirement for a European History course in my second year. The 124-page text is readable in large type with wide margins for notations. In the Introduction (not counted in the text total pages) the author writes that his work, "could be considerably expanded, qualified, bent, and adorned." I appreciated that he did not add unnecessary pages.

The author's objective in writing was to reconstruct how capitalism went from being the sin of avarice to a counterweight for other, less acceptable sins. The work is an interesting history of an idea that is today accepted as the best alternative available for people. I found it amusing that capitalism actually passed through a phase in history where people had to sell it. How that sales campaign was designed and conducted is interesting reading.

The book details some of the advantages of capitalism for workers. While massing people in cities close to factories and raw materials helps owners, it also helps the workers by giving them the opportunity to protest and riot against a government that devalues the currency (apparently a frequent problem in days of yore) or factory owners that otherwise exploit their workers too badly. These advantages are not generally associated with the tenement districts of the late 19th century industrial revolution in America, yet the history of social progress always includes incidents of large-scale violence.

One idea that the book stumbles with is the marginal utility of wealth. Since greed seems to never be sated, it is incorrectly assumed that the pursuit of economic gain has no declining marginal utility. In fact, currency and wealth have no marginal utility at all, but can be transformed into any form of consumption as desired by its owner, and those goods and services have declining marginal utility. This is an important point. The early proponents of capitalism argued that greed would "harness" the destructive and diabolical passions of mankind. In fact, it really has had no effect on them at all, as wealth has become just an innocuous tool available for use or misuse as determined by its owner.

It was necessary to make capitalism something good in order to squelch early critics who opposed low wages and inhumane working conditions on moral grounds. Before then, the Invisible Hand just couldn't compete.

I much enjoyed reading this book, and can unreservedly recommend it to anyone interested in political economy and the history of economics (which grew out of the original 'political economy' into a separate branch of social science). Prof. Hirschman does a very good job in pulling together the various scattered ideas in modern history (so say from around 17th century onward) on the ideology and basic motivations for capitalism. This is a very interesting study on possible political motivations in a time that economic development through capitalism in Europe slowly started to take hold (large parts of Europe still remained a largely agrarian-based economy until end 19th/early 20th century). Even though this brought enormous political and social upheavals, the ideas on capitalism still largely were of a brave new world variety, and understandingly so. The observation that the desire for wealth does not seem to diminish as levels of wealth increase (an exception to the law of dimishing marginal utility) led a number of political philosophers to the exciting and hopeful idea that capitalism would channel human destructive passion or act as a 'counterweight' to other less socially desirable behaviour (of which the 17/18th centuries in Europe saw its share as well). As it turned out, this basic optimistic idea of course needed some heavy qualifications; e.g. to avoid abuses of power (such as the inevetable necessity for a strong role of government in capitalism, e.g. as enforcer of fair and equitable competition and alleviate market failures; or that economic interests do not necessarily stop any war). Nevertheless, the ideas on positive effects of capitalism on human behavior still stands in contemporary discussions as well, if only often implicitly. I liked his remark on how ironic, in historical context, the argument is that the strong focus on capitalism in modern society has led to impoverishment and alienation in the human experience. The idea in capitalism as described by its early protagonists was precisely to counteract or channel the human 'passions' that so far had not led to much constuctive behavior. As Prof. Hirschmann notes, a historical awarenesss of such arguments may not bring any clearer answers today but will certainly help to lift the level of discussion.

It's a bit of a miscategorization that this book is usually filed under "Economics." It's more about social and intellectual history. Hirschman traces social support for economic individualism as stemming from support for rational, predictable "interest" to counter irrational, unpredictable "passions." It's the old battle of Apollonian versus Dionysian, but it's very novel to see it played out in something as this-worldly as debates about political economy.

Hirschman's history of "interest" is similar to Weber's history of "capitalist rationalism," although Hirschman's attributed causal mechanisms are broader than Weber's: Hirschman says general desire to improve upon human nature, rather than specific Protestant religious concerns, was the justification for capitalist rationality. (However, taking Hirschman's tack, we cannot explain why capitalism elicited more support in some countries than in others.)

This is an excellent history of the concept of the "invisible hand," the idea that the pursuit of private gain can have socially salubrious effects. If you know about "the fable of the bees," you know a little bit about this concept, but Hirschman chronicles its history at a much deeper level.

Albert Hirschman's Exit, Voice and Loyality is a book written by an economist but accessible to all - a rare achieve in any academic disipline, especially economics. The book was written in the early 70's but still has relevant today. Its greatest achievment is the illumination of 'exit' as the mentality of modern western capitalist societies - the idealisation of the consumers' right to 'vote with one's feet' - and its spread into all forms of social activity. Hirschman adds a historical dimension to this by arguing that the whole of the United States has largely been built on 'exit' mentality - from the mass migration out of Europe from the 17th century onwards to the calls to 'go west' across the plains. Exit is the strategy advocated today by neo liberals as being the manifestation of democracy in the market sphere. Hirschman's observations were made in the early 70's, yet their relevance as an internal critique of the free market is perhaps even more important today in the post-cold war era when the traditional critiques of the capitalism (such as Marxism in its Communism manifestation) have so clearly failed. As liberals try to grasp the future - while opponents of liberalism turn their attention from Marx to Nietzsche (such as John Gray), Hirschman's Exit Voice and Loyalty is an accessible, refreshing and insightful look at market liberalism from within, and is therefore throughly recommended.

I read this book in the 1970's when I studied Political Science in Jerusalem. The Author bridges the gap between Economic and Political Theory. He shows from his real experiences that not always a monopoly is bad for the Public. A situation where you have too many choices is worse than having a few choices. As People who have experienced Multi-Party Systems like Weimar Republic in Germany and France in the Fifties, Many Parties does not mean Effective, (Good) Parties. USA and UK Manage very Well with few Political Parties. The Implications of this book are wide. How do you encourage people to use "Voice" to improve organisations instead of Exit or Loyalty (Where people stay quiet). A must to read to Understand the Social Dynamics. Another must is Isiah Berlin on the Paradox and clash between Freedom and Equality.

Hirschman is concerned with three types of argument typically deployed by reactionaries, i.e. conservatives vehemently, vocally and automatically opposed to proposed changes in the political, social or economic order. The arguments are: (1) Perversity: 'The change will only exacerbate the problem you are trying to solve.' (2) Futility: 'The change will achieve nothing, because it fails to acknowledge incontrovertible political, social or economic laws.' (3) Jeopardy: 'The change will threaten or destroy some cherished previous accomplishment, such as freedom or democracy.' Hirschman's approach is historical. Drawing examples from three key periods of reactionary thought - the aftermath of the French Revolution, the nineteenth-century push for universal suffrage, and the more recent rejection of the Welfare State - he tracks the development, deployment and intertwining of the arguments. His study raises some unstated questions about the psychology of conservatism, the tendency of the populous to be drawn in by such arguments, and the ease with which they can be deployed in short soundbites making them ideal for a modern mass media. Unfortunately, Hirschman doesn't address these issues, so if you're interested in exploring them you will need to look elsewhere. (Eduardo Giannetti's rather advanced psycho-philosophical study 'Lies We Tell Ourselves: The Art of Self-Deception' might be a good place to start. Giannetti addresses the issue only tangentially, but he does give a full account of the kind of self-delusion that a lot of conservative thinking requires.) While the three arguments Hirschman describes have been used most often by conservatives, he turns in the final chapters to the occasional tendency of 'progressives' to deploy similarly intransigent arguments. Such even-handedness is refreshing. This book will be useful to anyone wanting to promote or defend a progressive agenda as it delineates the likely arcs of resistance you will face, and alerts you to the possibility of woolly thinking infecting your own arguments. It's strongly recommended for conservatives, too. You'll learn that the kind of thinking you find "natural" and "morally right" has a long, hysterical history. This book will have both sides of the table thinking - which is always a good thing.

This is one of my favorite books for teaching. Hirschman starts out wondering why those conservatives are so hard to deal with. Notices that no real communication is taking place, just rhetoric, sound bites, as it were.

As he follows the mystery of how liberals are ever to get their ideas and the needs of the nation across through the rhetoric of the conservatives, he discovers, much to his own dismay, that the liberals use rhetoric, too. And in much the same way.

This book describes three basic patterns of argument in which much is said, but little communicated. It's a great help in guiding students to genuine argument and discourse. Not light reading, but well worth the effort. It's also refreshing to see the reflexive method of recognizing that we do ourselves much of what we accuse others of doing.