Exit vs voice

The views expressed in my last article attracted a healthy difference of opinion, particularly from those who wield influence or profit from their expertise and skill. They opine that if a person remains in a position despite not being paid befittingly and punctually, he either does so with foresight — building his profile for future stakes — or is smug satisfied with his treatment and a low profile.

But what if you are cartelised? If all the production houses have developed a cartelised thinking of delaying payments, should artists try their luck in la-la land? Lingering without dissent is meekish acquiescence to cartelisation, and leaving without being a voice for others by speaking out against the status quo is escapism.

Agreed; worth indeed has a nuisance power. But this power loses its impact in a field that is supersaturated with replacements, where the balance of supply and demand has slid down the ladder of quality and standard.

When one's worth is undermined by delays in credit and recognition, one faces the trichotomy of decision-making: to move on, stay or to challenge? The question is more moral and philosophical than professional. In a way, delayed payments become the norm when hobnobbing, connections, references, recommendations and wild card entries replace professional and business ethics — or when cartelisation stifles competition. When someone holds back the recognition for your work, they actually deny the moral recognition of your labour.

Philosopher Albert Hirschman, in his Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, dilates on a conceptual ultimatum posed to customers by the challenges of falling standards in the quality of goods or services. He posits the theory of Exit, Voice or Loyalty (EVL): Exit: to leave the organisation or switch to a competitor; Voice: to speak up and record one's protest for systemic change; Loyalty: to stay silent out of faith, fear or habit.

Unfailingly, people with no financial buffer stick to the third option, particularly in developing countries where to hold on to what is offered or available is a lifeline, and where options are scant, and where people are trigger-ready to elbow out the one who staggers. Few realise that exit safeguards self-respect while voice drives change. Hirschman defines Voice as 'political action par excellence'.

It is accepted beyond cavil that exit at the right moment is an act of privilege, but it is tenable to those who have alternatives up their sleeve. Exit can be an escapist choice, stimulated by self-interest and resourcefulness. It's a paradox: if the people who could cause a stir leave, the system will never change; if the powerless stay, the system never feels the pressure to change.

Exit is strongly believed to be motivated by economic behaviour and it is associated with Adam Smith's invisible hand. The moral logic of Exit, however, is weak from within, as it 'redeems the individual but abandons the collective'. However, institutions become insular to the treble of defying voices. Relaxing on Exit always stifles Voice. Pro-exits never allow worth to be assayed, as, for them, the moral fatigue of reform is always heavier than the loneliness of departure. They fear raising their voice is never without risk, retaliation and ostracism.

Erich Fromm, a social psychologist, warns that it is the fallout of capitalistic pursuits that people display themselves as over-the-counter packages of skills to be sold in the marketplace. Karl Marx's concept of 'estranged labour' says: "The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labour becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power on its own confronting him."

The pinching question is not whether one individual should leave or raise their voice; rather, it is related to the development of the collective conscience of professionals. When individual pursuits overshadow collectivism, oppression feeds upon fragmentation. Professional solidarity urges the likes of Syed Ahmad Ali and Mehreen Jabbar to voice that payment delay isn't a financial phenomenon; it is an ethical degradation of a society.