Perversity, Futility and Jeopardy

Carlos Lozada on Albert Hirschman | The Rhetoric of Reaction | What About Those on The Front Lines | Principles

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When conservatives decry calls for progressive reform, [Albert Hirschman] wrote, they often deploy one of three theses: perversity, futility and jeopardy. The first warns of unintended consequences: You may think a new social welfare program will mitigate economic inequality, for instance, but, perversely, it will only entrench it. The second is even more pessimistic: Your policy proposal cannot make a dent in the status quo, and your repeated, futile efforts only make me question your motives. The third is most ominous: Your agenda will have devastating effects on many other arenas that you may have not even considered, and is therefore too dangerous or foolish to implement.

| Carlos Lozada, reviews Albert Hirschman’s The Rhetoric of Reaction

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The Rhetoric of Reaction

Albert Hirschman published The Rhetoric of Reaction in 1991, and even at that early date he dedicated most of that slim volume — perhaps the most representative of his works — to the ‘rhetoric of the right’, and as Lozada positions Hirschman thinking in the opening quote, above.

I’m fairly certain that Hirschman would parse the actions of Trump’s Second Reign in his rhetorical terms.

The right’s arguments against DEI, for example: These policies and provisions have to be eradicated because the result is the exclusion of people of merit outside the ‘protected’ races (perversity). DEI efforts haven’t met their own goals despite the efforts made to date (futility), and DEI is an assault on the constitutional rights central to a free America, which could have compounding negative effects (jeopardy).

At core, the right’s oppositionism grants it leave to muster whatever arguments work, as Sam Tenenhaus explains:

Oppositionism is a powerful tool. It can bridge differences among groups otherwise at odds. Wall Street tycoons and Wal-Mart shoppers, authoritarian evangelicals and libertarian antitax brigades, ‘America First’ isolation lists and ‘unipolar' internationalists - all have been brought together in a unity of certitude that liberalism violates and even subverts American interests and values.”

Those advancing the assault on DEI and related policies that have risen from the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in essence want to rewind the clock, and they believe that they are on the right side of history. Hirschman noted that “People enjoy and feel empowered by the confidence, however vague, that they ‘have history on their side’.”

(Note: Trump’s newly installed Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, followed this return to the ‘halcyon days of yore’ by retiring the name of Fort Liberty, which had formerly been Fort Bragg, named after a Confederate general. But, for cover, he claims re-renaming it Fort Bragg is in honor of a different Bragg, a world war II hero.)

The constitutionality of these actions is questionable, while their aim is abundantly clear, and the techniques being employed to justify them can be dissected using Hirschman’s analysis. But dissection can only go so far, and while it might support the work of students of history and analysts — like me — it offers no redress for those caught up in the wholesale reformulation of how America thinks about diversity, equality, and inclusion.

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What About Those On The Front Lines?

Again we can turn to Hirschman to consider those caught in companies reversing their DEI programs, or working in US government agencies where DEI is being shut down.

As I wrote in 2023,

Hirshman is the researcher who defined the three-part model for employee loyalty. An employee who is disgruntled may either stay out of loyalty (perhaps misplaced), give voice to their concerns (hoping the company will listen), or exit (when they believe that the company won’t listen, or has proven it won’t).

Hirshman cast this model based on observations of customer and investor loyalty. If a customer is dissatisfied, they generally make an economic choice namely to exit: they buy a different product or frequent a different restaurant. If an investor is dissatisfied with a company’s stock market performance they, like the customer, may sell the stock, and buy something else. But in both classes, those with higher loyalty might use their voice, a political choice, to attempt to influence the decisions and operations of the companies involved. Activist investors and Yelp influencers are doing this all the time.

The situation of the employee, though, is much more conflicted. A worker that is opposed to actions being taken by their company has the same tensions between loyalty, voice, and exit, but much more is on the line than buying an ice cream or selling a few shares of Nvidia.

First of all, the decision to exit — to quit and find a new job is a potentially large economic decision with the chance of major financial and career prospects. There are many interconnected variables — job market, kinds of skills, pensions, and so on — so taking that step is precarious.

Consider a federal employee in, for example, the Department of Education, one who has benefited from the historial DEI programs there. Do they consider resigning? Or if they are too close to the DEI activities, such as HR professionals, should they accept the Trump administrations (contested by the courts) offer of a voluntary resignation? Do they have any other options?

There is the political option of voice: individuals or groups (such as worker groups or unions) can speak out against these changes, or bring suit against the eradication of DEI. Given the rhetoric of the Trump administration, we can’t expect the White House to back down because of public opinion.

And those that are most loyal may be doubly-bound. Again, Hirshman, from Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States

The ultimate in unhappiness and paradoxical loyalist behavior, occurs when the public evil produced by the organization promises to accelerate or to reach some intolerable level as the organization deteriorates; then, in line with the reasoning just presented, the decision to exit will become ever more difficult the longer one fails to exit. The conviction that one has to stay on to prevent the worst grows stronger all the time.

I am certain there are tens of thousands of highly loyal public servants that are these paradoxically loyalist workers, who worry that their departure would cause great damage to the mission of their organization, and harm those most dependent of the work that the organization performs.

Consider that Department of Education staffer, worried about the funding for schools, and the harms that could be prevented if only they could stay another month, another quarter, and see their duty through.

Those are the ones I am thinking of today, each struggling to decide whether to speak up or exit, in an administration that has been pulled inside out and upside down.

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