Exit v Voice: A Dissident's Dilemma

choi

Roger Lowenstein, The Choice: To Squawk or to Go?  A refugee economist created an irresistibly useful approach to understanding how dissent shapes organizations. Wall Street Journal, Mar 23, 2013
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 70743034963414.html
(book review on Jeremy Adelman, Worldly Philosopher; The Odyssey of Albert O Hirschman, Princeton University Press, 2013)

(a) Excerpt in the window of print: Perhaps it's time for some balance, for social structures that listen better and slow the impulse to quit.

(b) two consecutive paragraphs:

"had it not been for Federal Express, sopping up the customers with the most urgent business, the post office probably would have faced a mass riot. Recognizing this truth, totalitarian regimes such as Cuba have preferred to weaken the potential for unrest by tolerating some emigration (exit).

"Hirschman saw that when organizations make it easy to exit, voice is weakened. Yet, for voice to be effective, a possibility of exit must be present. Partners in business—even in marriage—trade in voice, but the unstated potential for exit, no matter how remote, gives their requests ('Empty the garbage, please') particular urgency.

(c) Note:
(i) The Jewish (Ashkenazic) surname Adelman is "composed of German Adel ‘nobility’ + Mann or Yiddish man ‘man.’"
(ii) sop (vt): "MOP"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sop
(iii) Albert Camus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus
(1913-1960; a French Nobel Prize winning author)
(iv) cumbrous (adj): "CUMBERSOME"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cumbrous