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Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action
Why does society oscillate between intense interest in public issues and almost total concentration on private goals? In this classic work, Albert O. Hirschman offers a stimulating social, political, and economic analysis dealing with how and why frustrations of private concerns lead to public involvement and public participation that eventually lead back to those private concerns. Emerging from this study is a wide range of insights, from a critique of conventional consumption theory to a new understanding of collective action and of universal suffrage.
168 pages, Paperback
First published December 12, 1981
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About the author
Albert O. Hirschman
70 books143 followersAlbert Otto Hirschman was an economist and the author of several books on political economy and political ideology. His first major contribution was in the area of development economics. Here he emphasized the need for unbalanced growth. He argued that disequilibria should be encouraged to stimulate growth and help mobilize resources, because developing countries are short of decision making skills. Key to this was encouraging industries with many linkages to other firms.
His later work was in political economy and there he advanced two schemata. The first describes the three basic possible responses to decline in firms or polities (quitting, speaking up, staying quiet) in Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970). The second describes the basic arguments made by conservatives (perversity, futility and jeopardy) in The Rhetoric of Reaction (1991).
His later work was in political economy and there he advanced two schemata. The first describes the three basic possible responses to decline in firms or polities (quitting, speaking up, staying quiet) in Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970). The second describes the basic arguments made by conservatives (perversity, futility and jeopardy) in The Rhetoric of Reaction (1991).
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 5, 2022
This book is about what leads people to get involved with public activities in a land that is obsessed with private business and satisfactions.
Hirschman believes there is a collective swing or cycle back and forth between the private and public. The idea that the pursuit of one’s private, material interests is a “wholly legitimate form of conduct, one that may in fact be preferable, from the point of view of society, to a life of intensive involvement with public affairs” is a recent phenomenon.
Acts of consumption, as well as acts of participation in public affairs, that are undertaken in expectation of satisfaction, also yield disappointment and dissatisfaction.
The move from public back to private life "is often helped along by an ideology which proclaims self-interested behavior as a social duty. ... the dogged pursuit of happiness along the private road is not, as we often tend to think, what comes naturally; rather, it is presided over and impelled by an ideology which justifies it, not only in terms of its beneficial results for the individual pursuer, but as the surest and perhaps only way in which individual can make a contribution to the common good. The ideological claims made for the private life thus sustain the individual's quest with two messages: one, the promise of satisfaction and happiness; and two, the assurance that there is no need for guilt feelings or regrets over the neglect of the public life. These two messages are interrelated so that the experience of disappointment in the pursuit of private happiness directly rehabilitates and reawakens the desire to share in the public life."
Hirschman believes there is a collective swing or cycle back and forth between the private and public. The idea that the pursuit of one’s private, material interests is a “wholly legitimate form of conduct, one that may in fact be preferable, from the point of view of society, to a life of intensive involvement with public affairs” is a recent phenomenon.
Acts of consumption, as well as acts of participation in public affairs, that are undertaken in expectation of satisfaction, also yield disappointment and dissatisfaction.
The move from public back to private life "is often helped along by an ideology which proclaims self-interested behavior as a social duty. ... the dogged pursuit of happiness along the private road is not, as we often tend to think, what comes naturally; rather, it is presided over and impelled by an ideology which justifies it, not only in terms of its beneficial results for the individual pursuer, but as the surest and perhaps only way in which individual can make a contribution to the common good. The ideological claims made for the private life thus sustain the individual's quest with two messages: one, the promise of satisfaction and happiness; and two, the assurance that there is no need for guilt feelings or regrets over the neglect of the public life. These two messages are interrelated so that the experience of disappointment in the pursuit of private happiness directly rehabilitates and reawakens the desire to share in the public life."
August 25, 2019
Hirschman intenta una explicación para las decisiones de los individuos cuando transitan de acciones privadas a públicas, y viceversa. Intenta salir del clásico esquema neoclásico sobre preferencias, pasando así a otras explicaciones de índole psicológicas y sociológicas. El libro es relativamente interesante aunque no sostiene ninguna tesis que el sentido común general no pueda esbozar.
January 20, 2014
Parts of this are genuinely brilliant, including the overall effort Hirschman made to marshall a diverse array of sources into a full argument about the cyclical nature of private-public engagement. There are some major problems with the argument's coherence. The cherry picking of examples is problematic (see for e.g. his discussion of the supposed absence of political passions once the secret vote was introduced, p. 117-118). There is significant confusion regarding the act of contemplation, as Hirschman cannot seem to decide whether it is a public act (p. 84, 129) or a private one (64). And he clings stubbornly til the very end to the assumption that work for the middle-classes is totalling alienating (133, and see below).
All in all, slightly disappointing, compared to Passions and Interests, at least for me.
****
19 Jan 2014 -
Not finished yet, but I can see where this is going - so just some thoughts along the way.
It is a good attempt at explaining social movements and political action in the West during the late twentieth century, and perhaps for a period prior to this as well. The arguments are admirably straightforward, accessible and clear. I would also liked to have added 'original' to this, but I suspect Hirschman was synthetising and mining a much larger canon of Western philosophy in order to get the American neo-classic economics profession (or at least its freshwater variant) out of its rational choice straightjacket.
Major gap: Hirschman makes clear only halfway through the text that he is seeking to account only for shifts in political engagement by the certain section society: the upper and middle classes (of the West), as opposed to those lower down on the social scale (from the point of view of social deprivation) (p. 76).
Fine - but within the smaller realm of his focus, there is a serious gap in the analysis. He seeks to make a clear distinction between public and private action - the idea that in public engagement the means and ends have no real distinction. Public action is a pleasurable, even consumable good in itself (and that it can be so pleasurable that the goal itself becomes a source of disappointment).
He claims, by way of constructing a contrast, no such distinction exists in private lives, ie. the middle and upper classes are assumed to be alienated from their labour, and only earn an income in order to spend it in a clearly defined realm of private pleasurable consumption - houses, cars, art, entertainment, food, drink etc:
'One of the major attractions of public action is the exact oppostie of the most fundamental characteristic of private pleasures under modern conditions: while the puruist of the latter through the production of income (work) is clearly marked off from the eventual enjoyment of these pleasures, there is no such clear distinction at all between the pursuit of the public happiness and the attainment of it.' (84-85).
'Even in the process of laboring away at our daily job we do on occasion "savor in advance" certain recurrent private delights that are going to be our reward once the monthly paycheck comes in.' (88)
This is oversimplistic. Work for middle and upper classes is by nature often thought of, and even experienced as a form of long-term comfort - ie. 'careers', 'self-development', a labour of love, a source of positive self-esteem and social status/identity. Of course alienation occurs for many, but it is not a static condition. People switch jobs *because* they seek a more fulfilling, meaningful form of work.
In this sense Hirschman, I think, is still a victim of modernist ideas of Western societies..
All in all, slightly disappointing, compared to Passions and Interests, at least for me.
****
19 Jan 2014 -
Not finished yet, but I can see where this is going - so just some thoughts along the way.
It is a good attempt at explaining social movements and political action in the West during the late twentieth century, and perhaps for a period prior to this as well. The arguments are admirably straightforward, accessible and clear. I would also liked to have added 'original' to this, but I suspect Hirschman was synthetising and mining a much larger canon of Western philosophy in order to get the American neo-classic economics profession (or at least its freshwater variant) out of its rational choice straightjacket.
Major gap: Hirschman makes clear only halfway through the text that he is seeking to account only for shifts in political engagement by the certain section society: the upper and middle classes (of the West), as opposed to those lower down on the social scale (from the point of view of social deprivation) (p. 76).
Fine - but within the smaller realm of his focus, there is a serious gap in the analysis. He seeks to make a clear distinction between public and private action - the idea that in public engagement the means and ends have no real distinction. Public action is a pleasurable, even consumable good in itself (and that it can be so pleasurable that the goal itself becomes a source of disappointment).
He claims, by way of constructing a contrast, no such distinction exists in private lives, ie. the middle and upper classes are assumed to be alienated from their labour, and only earn an income in order to spend it in a clearly defined realm of private pleasurable consumption - houses, cars, art, entertainment, food, drink etc:
'One of the major attractions of public action is the exact oppostie of the most fundamental characteristic of private pleasures under modern conditions: while the puruist of the latter through the production of income (work) is clearly marked off from the eventual enjoyment of these pleasures, there is no such clear distinction at all between the pursuit of the public happiness and the attainment of it.' (84-85).
'Even in the process of laboring away at our daily job we do on occasion "savor in advance" certain recurrent private delights that are going to be our reward once the monthly paycheck comes in.' (88)
This is oversimplistic. Work for middle and upper classes is by nature often thought of, and even experienced as a form of long-term comfort - ie. 'careers', 'self-development', a labour of love, a source of positive self-esteem and social status/identity. Of course alienation occurs for many, but it is not a static condition. People switch jobs *because* they seek a more fulfilling, meaningful form of work.
In this sense Hirschman, I think, is still a victim of modernist ideas of Western societies..
February 12, 2021
Hirschman, desde la teoría económica, trata de explicar el "extraño" fenómeno de porqué en ciertas épocas despierta el interés por la acción pública, a pesar de la creencia que el mejor desarrollo se logra cuando los individuos velan por sus intereses privados
A pesar de tratar de mostrarse neutral, logra entregar mas argumentos, y más solidos, hacía la acción pública que al interés privado, al menos, a ojos de quien escribe.
Grata sorpresa
A pesar de tratar de mostrarse neutral, logra entregar mas argumentos, y más solidos, hacía la acción pública que al interés privado, al menos, a ojos de quien escribe.
Grata sorpresa
March 6, 2021
characteristically brilliant in a uniquely Hirschman way
to-keep-reference
June 9, 2023Del curso de Buena Vida de Daguerre.
December 25, 2023
Easy to read. I appreciated that. But me (Jiewei), a Political Science major, had to read about durable vs. nondurable goods and their effect on consumer behavior in the context of economic trends? For a Political Science capstone? Suspect.
But it's okay. It was the shortest book on the list of options for the final paper, and that's why I chose it.
But it's okay. It was the shortest book on the list of options for the final paper, and that's why I chose it.
June 12, 2016
Hirschman elucida las causas de que las personas se muevan entre las esferas pública y privada y los cambios de preferencias que hacen que las personas decidan pasar de ser ciudadanos privados a ser activos en las causas colectivas.
De acuerdo a la hipótesis de Hirschman la democracia de voto secreto como conocemos ha terminado por encarcelar las emociones del ciudadano, misma critica que hacia John Stuart Mill.
El libro es pequeño pero ofrece reflexiones interesantes sobre la democracia liberal y el rol del ciudadano en ella contrastando con la lógica del votante racional.
De acuerdo a la hipótesis de Hirschman la democracia de voto secreto como conocemos ha terminado por encarcelar las emociones del ciudadano, misma critica que hacia John Stuart Mill.
El libro es pequeño pero ofrece reflexiones interesantes sobre la democracia liberal y el rol del ciudadano en ella contrastando con la lógica del votante racional.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews