Abstract
According to Hirschman lapses do occur in the functional behavior of firms/organizations, but
there are “forces” in the society that must be able to marshal to “revert” them back on
sound track. Presenting a triadic model of Exit, Voice and Loyalty, he suggests that exit option
on the part of customers/members would work powerfully to put the faltering
firms/organizations back on track. This option is perceived to work good in neo-classical
economic model that has a sufficient degree of quality elasticity of demand along with
decent scale of slack mechanism. Hirschman applies his model to social and political
organization and finds it fairly workable. The thesis he builds is quite impressive and
powerful. However, it seems unable to explain the complexities of behavior in closed systems
whether political or economic. His optimistic approach does not take into consideration the
negative or passive exits and voices. He does not take into account the transcendence of
voice across the boundaries by the agency of technology. This paper critiques Hirschman’s
thesis and proposes an alternative one.
