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Article: Opting-Out: The constitutional economics of exit. (Constitutional Economics).(Statistical Data Included)
- Article from:
- The American Journal of Economics and Sociology
- Article date:
- January 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Introduction
IN THE MODERN STATE the ideal of a political community would very much seem to be that of a geographically circumscribed area within which exists a more or less fixed political hierarchy, which includes all individuals and all political institutions, and whose physical extension is contiguous and non-perforated. The possibility of a citizen, a group of citizens or some unit withdrawing in any way but by physically moving is indeed often viewed as being the cause of weakness, instability and, potentially, chaos. The economist Albert 0. Hirschman in his classic Voice and Loyalty (1970) argued that consumers in a market basically can react to declines ...