Shifting Involvements

Albert O. Hirschman is a member of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton. He is the author of many books, including Exit, Voice, and Loyalty and The Strategy of Economic Development. Robert H. Frank is Godwin Smith Professor of Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at Cornell University. He is the author of Luxury Fever (Princeton).

FOREWORD ix PREFACE xv INTRODUCTION: A Private-Public Cycle? 3 Chapter 1. On Disappointment 9 The Role of Disappointment in Preference Change 9 Taking Disappointment Seriously 14 Chapter 2. Varieties of Consumer Disappointment 25 The Privileged Position of Truly Nondurable Goods 27 Consumer Durables 32 Services 39 Chapter 3. The General Hostility Toward New Wealth 46 Historical Evidence from the Eighteenth Century in England and France 46 The Manifold Case against New Goods 53 Chapter 4. From Private Concerns into the Public Arena-I 62 Exit and Voice Reactions to Consumer Disappointment 62 Explaining Changes in Life-Styles: Ideology and Second-Order Volitions 66 Chapter 5. From Private Concerns into the Public Arena-II 77 Collective Action and the Rebound Effect 77 Why Free Rides Are Spurned 82 Chapter 6. The Frustrations of Participation in Public Life-1 92 The Poverty of Our Imagination 93 Overcommitment and Addiction 96 Chapter 7. The Frustrations of Participation in Public Life-II 103 The Underinvolvement of Voting 103 A Historical Digression on the Origins of Universal Suffrage 112 Chapter 8. Privatization 121 Corruption 123 Public Virtue Debunked 125 Attractions of the Private Sphere 128 CONCLUSION 131 INDEX 135