The welfare state may thus face a wave of hostile public opinion and as a result may well pass through a difficult phase, with the need for consolida… - Albert O. Hirschman

At this point, then, a junction is effected between the previously developed train of thought on countervailing passions and the doctrine of interest. Both doctrines originated in Machiavelli; yet the final outcome—the promotion of avarice to the position of the privileged passion given the job of taming the wild ones and of making in this fashion a crucial contribution to statecraft—would have greatly surprised and outraged him.

Exit and voice, that is, market and non­ market forces, that is, economic and political mechanisms, have been introduced as two principal actors of strictly equal rank and importance.

A taste is almost defined as a preference about which you do not argue — de gustibus non est disputandum. A taste about which you argue, with others or yourself, ceases ipso facto being a taste – it turns into a value.