Exit rights

Members must be able to leave a community, with their person and, ideally, a fair share of what they contributed.

Hirschman showed how exit disciplines organisations; Chandran Kukathas' The Liberal Archipelago (2003) makes the right of exit the main safeguard in a society of diverse communities. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognises the right to leave any country.

• Intentional communities handle exit through rules on shared property.
• Cooperative and DAO charters define how departing members withdraw capital.

A formal right means little if leaving is very costly. Easy exit can also undermine the commitment communities need to provide long-term goods.

Exit rights are a widely accepted minimum safeguard; how to make exit realistic, not merely formal, remains a design problem.