NORMATIVE MODELS AND THEORIES OF ARGUMENTATION: PRAGMA-DIALECTICS. AN ANALYSIS OF A TEXT BY

H.-R. PATAPIEVICI

ISABELA IETCU

 

Introduction

In this paper I analyze an article on transition to a market economy in Romania by H.-R. Patapievici. The essay “Problema sindicală” (“The trade union question”, 1999a) appeared in Revista 22, the weekly publication of the Group for Social Dialogue. It is  representative of a set of articles by Patapievici, which address the problem of the so-called “black holes” – unprofitable and yet unprivatized industrial units, inherited from the socialist economy, which are draining the public budget by consuming more resources than  they are able to produce. I will briefly refer to a few other essays as well (Patapievici, 1999b, c).[1]

In his public interventions, Patapievici has argued for the “unconditional adoption” of an “uninhibited” form of capitalism, and for a minimal, non-interventionist conception of the state. In his view, the Romanians ought to have demanded from their political class  a “savage”, totally deregulated form of capitalism (un capitalism “sălbatic”…’, Patapievici, 1999d), instead of the (pseudo-)gradualist policies that have ruined the economy after 1989. The terms in which the state’s interventionist policies are delegitimized in his essays are usually similar to those used by reputable economic analysts (Daniel Dăianu, Ilie Şerbănescu): the state’s practices of writing off the debts of unproductive industrial state units, of tolerating bad debts from companies that are “clients” of the regime, have been putting an enormous strain on the economy and on the population. Such practices have served the corrupt economic and electoral interests of a political-economic “predatory elite” that has “captured” the state (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2003a) and have prevented the Romanian economy from becoming a functional market economy.

I am not disputing this type of diagnosis of the Romanian state’s detrimental involvement in the functioning of the market. My focus is on what I take to be an unwarranted move, in Patapievici’s essays, from this type of analysis to a defence of a minimal neo-liberal state, with limited responsibilities towards the population, and of a neo-liberal “economic logic”, which public intellectuals might nevertheless have been expected to challenge and subject to critical discussion.  In particular, and against the writer’s views, I consider that we have indeed had a truly “savage” form of capitalism, which has however not brought the benefits it was supposed to bring, but massive injustice, an extreme economic polarization between rich and poor, coupled with an unprecedented erosion of “human capital” through prolonged poverty, the collapse of the education and health systems, and the chronic weakness, inefficiency and corruption of the state’s institutions.

In my research so far I have tried to develop an original analytical framework, combining concepts used in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), in particular recontextualization, strategy, dialogicality and a certain view of public space dialogue (Fairclough, 1999, 2000, 2003) and concepts used in a range of normative theories of argumentation – particularly pragma-dialectics (van Eemeren and Grootendorst, 1992, 2004; van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2002), informal logic (Johnson 2000) and Habermas’s theory of argumentation (Habermas 1983/1990, 1984). These theories rest on a (procedural) conception of critical discussion and dialogue as crucial to good argumentation practice. I have also discussed the structure of argumentation in terms borrowed from Kratzer’s (1981, 1991)  theory of modality – a  theory which views arguments, such as arguments on what ought to be done, as involving particular sets (“conversational backgrounds”) of factual, epistemic and normative premises that speakers draw on in reasoning.[2]

In order to understand how CDA can be combined with argumentation theories in the analysis of essays such as these, it is crucial to observe that the underlying “logic” of the recontextualizing practice, as a practice of (de)legitimation, is reflected in certain ways of arguing. Studying argumentation, therefore, can offer CDA valuable insight into processes of recontextualization of discourses. These occur within political strategies, one dimension of which are argumentative strategies, which involve particular forms of “strategic maneuvering” (van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 2002a) and may involve fallacious argumentative moves. For instance, in the public interventions of the intellectuals, western liberal discourses were often recontextualized within a false dilemma (presented, however, as a valid disjunctive syllogism) between an extreme form of economic neo-liberalism and an extreme left-wing position (Ieţcu, 2004). With its resources for analyzing strategic maneuvering, pragma-dialectics can offer CDA a more comprehensive treatment of questions of strategy and recontextualization. 

A typical argumentative scheme in Patapievici’s essays is a “problem-solution” topos, in which the solution which an opponent proposes to a problem is claimed to be a pseudo-solution (extremist, self-contradictory, irrational, immoral, etc.). From a modal-theoretical perspective (Kratzer, 1981, 1991), argumentation of this sort involves the following line of reasoning: given what the circumstances (“problems”) are, and given a certain normative ideal, it is necessary to reject the antagonist’s “solution”. It is through analyzing the “normative conversational background” of particular arguments (or reconstructing what has been left unexpressed) that one can gain insight into the ethics and political values that underlie Patapievici’s arguments, ultimately into the “moral economy” he defends or rejects. Questions of ethics and political values can in turn clarify broader issues of strategy. 

In this paper, my aims are three-fold: (a) to show how this framework can be applied in the analysis of text, with a particular focus on pragma-dialectics (for reasons of space, I am leaving aside a discussion in CDA terms); (b) to evaluate particular arguments in relation to a normative view of argumentation, in order to shed light on the particular contribution that such texts have made to the opening up of “social dialogue”, the explicit aim of the Group for Social Dialogue; (c) to clarify, on the basis of an analysis of the  backgrounds of premises underlying argumentation, what the “moral” point of view defended by the writer actually amounts to, what type of “moral economy” (Sayer, 1999) is defended or rejected.

Normative theories of argumentation

Van Eemeren and Grootendorst’s (1992, 2004) “pragma-dialectical” approach views argumentation as a means of resolving differences of opinion by testing the acceptability of a disputed proposition in a process of critical discussion (i.e. an exchange in which the parties systematically try to determine whether the standpoint at issue is defensible in the light of critical doubt or objections). Pragma-dialectics puts forward a normative model of argumentation, containing “rules” that indicate which moves are admissible in critical discussion and which are not. The pragma-dialectical view of reasonableness and rationality is tied to the observance of a procedural model of critical discussion, defined in terms of this set of “rules” (van Eemeren and Grootendorst, 1992:208-209; 2004:190-196). Pragma-dialectics is a critical rationalist approach: the function of arguments is primarily critical, and a good argument is one that can withstand serious criticism. It acknowledges that there is an inherent tension between resolving a difference of opinion by putting a view to a critical test, thus upholding a reasonable discussion attitude (a “dialectical” concern), and resolving a difference of opinion in one’s own favour (a “rhetorical” concern). In their efforts to reconcile the simultaneous pursuit of these two different aims, arguers will make use of “strategic maneuvering” (van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 2002a: 135). When a party allows its rhetorical aims to overrule its commitment to the rules of critical discussion, the strategic maneuvering gets “derailed”. Fallacies, as violations of the rules for critical discussion, are therefore also seen as “derailments of strategic maneuvering”, derailments from critical conduct (van Eemeren and Houtlosser, 2002a: 138-142).

A related perspective is that of “informal logic” (Johnson, 2000). Johnson’s view of argumentation as “manifest rationality”, for instance, emphasizes dialogue with other perspectives as essential to a normative conception of argumentation. Argumentation is viewed as always occurring “against a background of controversy”, where “to argue is … to enter into a space shared by many others also interested in the same issue, many of whom take a different position” (Johnson, 2000:150). A good argument will contain both a premises-conclusion structural (“illative”) core and “dialectical” tier, at which the arguer is expected to address objections, criticism and alternative standpoints on the claim he is defending, show how he can handle the consequences of his position, etc. Alternatively, one might inquire whether an arguer aims for impartiality, as a Habermasian “discourse ethics” (Habermas, 1983/1990, 1984) would require, i.e. whether he attempts, by giving recognition to a wide variety of views, by engaging in a “universal exchange of roles”, to mediate an impartial perspective on the issues he addresses.

 “The trade union question’: an analytic overview

The text is primarily an indictment of the role of trade unions. The difference of opinion that gives rise to argumentation (at the confrontation stage) is on the “role” of trade unions. The “common opinion” on this role (later shown to be identical with the trade union view) is that they “protect their members”. This difference is not fully externalized at the beginning of the argumentation , as the writer does not yet advance a position of his own, but only implicitly challenges the opponent’s standpoint. Here is an English version of the text (my translation):  

For the ordinary citizen (…) the mechanism of life during transition is monotonous: factory output decreases or does not sell; inflation goes up; the national currency is devalued; people’s living standards are lower and lower; the trade unions protest; “strategic” industrial branches demand and obtain salary increases (by means of the blackmail which the trade unions call “negotiations with the government”); public utility companies with an absolute monopoly on the Romanian market announce an increase in the tariffs of their (unsatisfactory) services; prices soar; the same amount of money can only buy a smaller amount of goods than a few months ago (…). And so on and on. Ad infinitum? Evidently not. As each cycle starts anew, the possibility for the next one to unfold identically is considerably diminished, mainly due to the fact that each cycle feeds on a pool of resources which could only be renewed if this vicious circle were broken. As it is not, these resources are invariably consumed without being replenished. (…)

In the “smooth” functioning of this vicious mechanism, the trade unions have found their own inexorable role. Let us see what this role is. According to common opinion, trade unions protect their members. This is why, when salaries are too small or when their buying power decreases alarmingly, the trade unions step in. They will start protesting and claiming that the employees they are representing are disadvantaged by the deterioration of the economic situation. The trade unions’ only solution to the decrease of purchasing power is to wrench out higher salaries. From whom? In our country, one can only demand that from the government. Consequently, the only vocal trade unions will be those representing the interests of those employees paid from the state budget. This is the first aspect. The second is that the weight of a demand for an increase in salaries is proportional to that trade union’s capacity for intimidation. In order for a trade union to be convincing, it is necessary both that the population segment it represents should be numerous and that it should be – I cannot think of a better word – strategic. For example, when the truck drivers organize a demonstration to put pressure on the government, the dislocation of forces is incomparably harder to ignore than the anemic street protests of other state-paid employees, secondary school teachers for instance. Consequently, in order for a trade union to be able to intimidate, it must not only represent a large number of employees, but these employees must also come from the big industries. Yet, as everybody knows, these big industries are also the least profitable. In this way, the trade unions that get most attention will also be in our case those representing the employees with the fewest (moral and economic) rights to claim privileges from the government. Why? Because the industries they work in are precisely those which spend resources without being able to replace or increase them. These are, that is, either the state monopolies – renamed, after the fall of communism, “autonomous public utility companies” – which do not know how to survive their own incompetence except by periodically putting up the prices of the services they offer (…), or the so-called “black holes” in our economy, those huge industrial units which accumulate stocks of unsold goods, have tens of thousands of employees and represent the “national pride” of a view of patriotism and the economy that is so unnatural by any standards of intelligence that it is no wonder it has only led to disaster.

We can draw, in short, three clear and distinct conclusions: (a) the only trade unions that can exert pressure represent the employees paid from the state budget of the unprofitable heavy industries; (b) the trade unions’ only power is that of blackmail, by threatening to cause social unrest; (c) the only claim ever staked by a trade union is and has been the preferential distribution to its employees of that which, according to economic logic, would have belonged to others.

There are two effronteries and a hypocrisy here. It is an effrontery to threaten with social upheaval (…), it is also an effrontery to pillage the state budget (…). These two effronteries delineate without mercy the moral profile of the post-communist trade union leader. In the vicious mechanism I have described above, where the only way to acquire resources is to steal them from others, a good trade union leader’s performance will be evaluated by his ability to extract from the government higher salaries for the employees he represents. However, as the trade union leader’s responsibility is only towards those who have voted him into his position, he will feel no institutional responsibility towards other employees, and even less towards the overall development of the economy. For this reason, the trade union leader’s role will be, of necessity, morally dubious and economically damaging. (…)

But there is also a hypocrisy here. (…) Our trade unions claim to be protecting their members. But how do they understand themselves as doing this? In only one way: by requiring that the debts to the state budget of the industrial units they are representing should be periodically erased and by demanding salary increases whenever inflation threatens to render the national currency worthless. But it is a hypocrisy to claim that you are representing the interests of the employees by putting into one pocket what you are taking out of another. It is a hypocrisy to claim that you are serving the common good when you are systematically

paying out of the pockets of over ten million people for the incompetence, laziness, unimaginativeness and arrogance of a few thousand people. (…) On the contrary, if there is a role for trade unions in a healthy economy (and I doubt it), then this role must break free from the burden of demagogy, populism, brutality, arrogance and cunning that has characterized the useless and damaging activities of the Romanian trade unions after communism.

At the opening stage, the writer commits himself to a critical discussion, first as an antagonist of the “common opinion”(“Let us see what this role is”), then as a protagonist properly speaking, casts the wider public as protagonist for their own standpoint and defines inclusive “we” as a participant, which includes himself and the audience. The presupposition that the trade unions have their own “inexorable” role in the “vicious mechanism” and the description of this mechanism are also part of the opening stage. These are treated as mutual concessions (“common ground”), as premises that the audience will presumably accept without defence. (For the sake of convenience, I will refer to the writer as the protagonist, and to other parties as the antagonists.)

At the argumentation stage, the protagonist begins to spell out what “protection” involves, in terms of who demands salary increases, from whom, at whose expense, and why these people have no right to make such demands. I suggest the following partial reconstruction, where the premises seem to be chained in a “vertically linked”, “subordinative” argumentation, advanced in order to critically evaluate or test the view that trade unions “protect their members”:

(1)    Protection is equivalent to demanding higher salaries.

(2)    When salaries are too small, trade unions will demand higher salaries.

(3)    Higher salaries can only be demanded from the government.

(4)    Only those trade unions that represent employees paid by the state will demand higher salaries.

(5)    A trade union can only be successful if it can “intimidate” the government.

(6)    Only large and “strategic” trade unions can “intimidate” the government.

(7)    It follows that the only successful trade unions are those which represent the interests of people employed in the heavy industries.

(8)    These industries spend resources without replacing or increasing them (are unprofitable).

(9)    Unprofitable industries have no moral/economic right to claim privileges (implicit premise).

(10) It follows that employees represented by successful trade unions have the fewest moral and economic rights to claim privileges.

(11) Only profitable industries have a moral/economic right to privileges (implicit premise).

(12) It follows that only the employees of the productive sector have a moral and economic right to demand privileges (implicit premise).

(13) Material resources belong to those who produce them (implicit premise).

Finally, three allegedly “clear and distinct conclusions” are said to follow:

(14) The only trade unions capable of exerting pressure are those of employees in unprofitable heavy industries (actually a restatement of premise 7, not a conclusion properly speaking).

(15) The trade unions’ only power is that of blackmail (actually, a restatement of premise 5, with “intimidation” reformulated as “blackmail”).

(16) The only claim ever advanced by a trade union is to be allocated resources which belong to other people – presumably based on several of the premises above, including 8 and 13, and explicitly “backed” by considerations of “economic logic”.

From this point onwards, in the fourth and fifth paragraphs, the argumentation shifts from “economic logic” to morality. The protagonist draws out the moral implications of the three conclusions (14-16). As these conclusions only make explicit the protagonist’s understanding of the trade unions’ standpoint, this stage can be said to amount to a second “confrontation”, no longer on the grounds of economic logic but on moral grounds, with a clear standpoint advanced this time by the protagonist: “There are two effronteries and a hypocrisy here” (două neruşinări şi o ipocrizie). The two “effronteries” are subsequently attributed explicitly to the trade union leader, and the “hypocrisy” to the trade union movement as a whole. An opening stage can also be identified, in terms of the consensus that has presumably been achieved up to this point with the audience on the role of trade unions. The claim that “the only way to acquire resources is to steal them from others” (a reformulation of 16) is now taken as a common starting point to a subsequent multiple argumentation in support of the claim that the trade union leader’s role is, “of necessity, morally dubious and economically damaging”.

At the concluding stage of this second argumentation, the difference of opinion is resolved in favour of the  protagonist: the trade unions’ standpoint, whose immoral nature has been presumably demonstrated, is rejected. What is most striking is the generalization of a negative view on the role of trade unions in Romania to the role of trade unions in “any healthy economy” – which reflects the writer’s consistent anti-left bias.

“The trade union question” as a critical discussion

Dialectically speaking, there are two main opposing parties in this text: the writer and public opinion (the “common view”). The latter is identified with the position of the trade unions. There is also a supposedly neutral audience that the protagonist will try to persuade. Rhetorically speaking, the protagonist adapts to the audience by creating the impression of a commonality of views, or at least a common commitment to critical discussion, by means of inclusive “we”, thus positioning the audience as a rational ally. He also begins strategically by evoking the perspective of the “ordinary citizen” (cetăţeanul de rând), disingenuously implying that he is speaking on the latter’s behalf and arguing from his premises.

Strategic maneuvering is also evident in the way the protagonist describes the deterioration of living standards in Romania to create common ground with the audience. At least three aspects stand out in the way the protagonist chooses to define the starting point. First, the causal explanation developed in the first paragraph, in terms of a logical chain of causes and effects, makes it very difficult for readers to detect any weak links in the reasoning. Few Romanians would dispute that the situation has indeed been deteriorating, although it is debatable whether the trade unions can be imputed the responsibility claimed by the writer. The protagonist draws on predictable consensus on the state of the economy in order to imply from the very beginning that the trade unions have a major role in the cause-and-effect mechanism he is describing. This explanation is accompanied by argument: the mechanism cannot “evidently” go on ad infinitum, as it depends on resources which are consumed and not replaced. He backs his claim by an implicit appeal to logic and common-sense laws of physics. However, it is only “evident” that the mechanism functions in this way once the reader accepts that no new material resources ever enter the system and the only reason why resources disappear is the salary increases demanded by trade unions, coupled with the writing off of debts of loss-making units. These things, however, are by no means evident (it can be argued that ordinary employees are the least likely beneficiaries of the state’s involvement in the economy). The starting point is nevertheless defined in such a way as to make it virtually impossible to challenge, without apparently challenging logic itself.

Secondly, although the protagonist sets out to reject the trade unions’ standpoint through an argumentative process, a clearly negative view of the role of trade unions is already introduced at the opening stage (“the blackmail which the trade unions call “negotiations with the government”, şantajul sindical…), by means of presupposition, and therefore presented as a common starting point. The same view, however, is also one of the explicit conclusions. The attempt to pass off as a common starting point a position that may not be acceptable to the audience, and is in fact to be demonstrated, constitutes a violation of the rules for critical discussion (rule 6, the “starting point rule”), as the arguer seeks to evade the burden of proof. The protagonist’s argument cannot therefore avoid circularity – see the repetition of various premises in the conclusions (trade unions “intimidate” and “put pressure” on the government, therefore they “blackmail” the government). Fallacies in using starting points are instances of “derailment” of strategic maneuvering, in that the protagonist allows his commitment to standards of critical discussion to be overridden by his rhetorical goals.

Thirdly, the “backing” which supposedly supports premises such as (9) and thus conclusion (16) and the argument as a whole is said to be “economic logic”, by implication not a particular neo-liberal “economic logic”, but apparently the only possible economic logic. According to Toulmin (1958), the acceptability of an argument depends, among other things, on the degree to which the “warrant” is made acceptable by the “backing”. However, it is precisely the acceptability of this “economic logic”, which has constantly, since 1990, facilitated the growing polarization between the economic elites and the poor majority, that is never called into question, it is this logic that is surreptitiously passed off as common ground, as a shared, objective and non-ideological normative ideal.

The way in which the protagonist defines the difference of opinion at the confrontation stage is also strategically designed to contribute to a resolution in his favour. The same self-serving function would not be achieved if the writer chose to define the trade unions’ role in terms of protection of people’s rights, or trade union demands as seeking justice for their members. As I have observed, the difference of opinion is not fully externalized at the confrontation stage: the protagonist’s standpoint will become explicit at the concluding stage (14-16). The protagonist’s argumentative strategy is to use the opponent’s standpoint (trade unions “protect their members”) in order to prove his own standpoint. He does this by defining what “protection” means. This definition is not taken from the trade unions or from the “common view”, it is the protagonist’s own interpretation. As the equivalence between “protection” and “blackmail” etc. is presented as the inevitable conclusion of a logical argument, the protagonist’s use of this argumentative strategy is a failure of critical conduct – he is substituting his view of what protection means for the trade unions’ perspective and leaving no space for the opponent to question his view or define their understanding of what “protection” means. On the assumption that the “rationality of argumentation is secured by procedures that maximize opportunities for critical examination of arguments”, “provide for full disclosure of the basis for competing standpoints” and “encourage full and open exploration of alternative points of view” (Jacobs, 2002:124), this particular definition of the disagreement, while making the conclusions impossible to reject from the premises that are advanced, is at the same time an obstruction of proper critical discussion procedure.

Another potentially fallacious move occurs at the argumentation stage in the way in which a potentially contentious unexpressed premise is assumed to be shared with the reader. The implicit warrant I have identified in (9) – unprofitable industries do not have a moral and economic right to claim salary increases – is used to support a more problematic claim about the rights of people employed in these industries (10). This raises the question of moral economy, which I deal with in the next section. With trade union demands pre-defined in a way which favours the protagonist’s standpoint, it is in fact surprising that the question of “rights” appears at all. But its appearance does not contribute to an enlargement of the critical perspective, because the “rights” in question are immediately defined as illegitimate: they are “rights to privileges” (even “limitless salary privileges”), not for instance rights to a fair treatment, or to decent living standards. Throughout the argumentation stage, just as at the opening and confrontation stages, the terms of the discussion are strategically chosen and defined in a way which makes the writer’s argumentative success inevitable.

The argumentation developed in the second paragraph is of a quasi-logical type, apparently intended as a Popperian argument, in which the protagonist begins by provisionally accepting a standpoint, only to reject it after having shown that it leads to unacceptable consequences. In the last paragraph, there is a similar type of argumentation on how alleged “protection” leads to morally unacceptable outcomes and even self-contradiction (“putting into one pocket what you are taking out of another”), hence the accusation of “hypocrisy”. Quasi-logical argumentation is one of Patapievici’s favorite argumentative schemes and is used strategically to suggest not only that the connections between premises and conclusions are as compelling as in valid syllogisms, but also that the argument as a whole is immune to criticism (a questionable move, as it discourages critical examination). The acceptability of an argument does not depend only on its apparent valid form, but on the degree to which the premises are acceptable to the audience. Here, the conclusion only follows “necessarily” because the premises have been defined in a particular way (e.g. so as to contain the conclusion). In his use of logical argumentation, Patapievici is nevertheless demonstrative about his pursuit of “dialectical” goals, by constantly accentuating logical relations and an alleged willingness to explore his opponent’s standpoint. 

In the final two paragraphs, the confrontation is set strategically against an implicit background of shared moral values. The audience is positioned as a moral agent, who will naturally disapprove of immoral behaviour, and on the side of those who are being wronged by the “laziness”, “incompetence”, “arrogance” of trade union leaders. The suggestion is that, should the audience happen to approve of the trade unions’ standpoint, they will somehow place themselves on the wrong side of the moral divide. It is typical of Patapievici’s mode of argumentation to transfer a difference of opinion on some factual matter onto a moral ground, to re-frame it in moral terms. The protagonist is thus able to draw on predictable consensus on a range of moral issues, and somehow suggest that such agreement should resolve the disagreement on another controversial standpoint (the legitimacy of trade union demands) – an incorrect argumentative move (as it is not self-evident that people who disapprove of theft and laziness will also hold a negative view of trade union demands).

In pragma-dialectical terms, argumentative moves such as the ad hominem attacks launched against trade-union leaders in the final paragraphs, are potentially fallacious because they attempt to discredit and eliminate the opponent as a serious discussion partner (violations of rule 1, the “freedom rule”). According to a contextual, functional view of fallacies (Jacobs, 2002), however, it is conceivable that ad hominem attacks are not always fallacious; in certain cases, they can function as a constructive contribution to a critical discussion. They can be fitting adjustments to the rhetorical situation at hand (Jacobs, 2002: 125). To what extent can this strong “moral” indictment of the trade unions represent an adjustment to the context and situation of the audience? The defence of a radical approach to economic reform, inevitably involving a delegitimation of trade union activity, may be understandable to a certain extent in the Romanian context where “gradualist”, anti-reformist policies have been aptly named “shock without the therapy” (Lavigne, 1995/1999). Cases where trade union leaders have been offered personal advantages in order to abandon protests might also be invoked in support of the view that the writer’s strategy of delegitimation by moral condemnation of trade union leaders can be non-fallacious in the context. It is however questionable whether, in a country with glaring economic and social inequalities, where poverty is massive and systemic, a moral indictment which delegitimizes a form of protest can ultimately be justified as an adjustment to the situation, given that it seems to ignore the inherent justification of demands for salary increases, i.e. the aggravation of poverty for the majority of the population.

Conflicting moral economies

Moral argumentation in this text seems to follow two patterns. One is an epistemic argument, in which an allegedly shared moral conception functions (in Kratzer’s terms) as ordering source: given everything we know, e.g. that “the only way to acquire resources is to steal them from others” (modal base), and given a shared moral perspective on the world (implicit ordering source), it follows that, “of necessity”, the role of the trade union leader is “morally dubious”. The other involves circumstantial modality: circumstantial (factual) premises and a normative ordering source (part of the moral economy advocated) which support a normative claim. The protagonist’s argument in the last paragraph can be summarized as follows: given what the circumstances are (inflation, deterioration of the economic situation), and given a certain normative ideal (e.g. a “healthy” market economy, functioning according to “economic logic”, etc.), it is necessary that salaries should not go up, debts should not be written off, trade unions should stop making the demands they do. The trade unions’ (represented) standpoint can be reconstructed in the same way: given what the circumstances are (inflation, etc.), and given a certain normative ideal (“serving the common good”, “representing the interests of the employees”, etc.), it is necessary that salaries should be increased, etc. The trade unions’ normative premises are rejected as being immoral (“hypocritical”) from the perspective of the protagonist’s normative background, or as violations of “economic logic” and “economic rationality”.

A theoretical perspective that addresses moral aspects of economic systems is that of “moral economy” (Sayer, 1999). Although Patapievici seems to postulate an inherent link between the economic logic he defends and morality itself, the moral point of view he defends reflects the “moral economy” of a particular neo-liberal or libertarian economic system. According to this view, resources “belong” to certain people, i.e. those who are productive and competitive; any claim to a redistribution of resources towards unproductive and uncompetitive social actors is immoral. In the writer’s conception, only those who produce goods (or possess them already) seem to have rights. Questions of whether, before the (re)distribution of resources can proceed according to work and merit, resources are not already unequally and unjustly distributed, or whether those who, for various reasons, are not sufficiently productive may also have rights, seem to be excluded. The question of people’s rights, as I suggested above, is fallaciously conflated with that of the rights of unproductive units to claim resources which they cannot transform into profit. A moral focus on rights is thus replaced by an economic calculation in terms of investment and gain. However, while “economic logic” can be invoked appropriately to show that what is spent cannot forever exceed what is gained, it is doubtful whether it is appropriate in a discussion of the rights of individuals.What is most significant, in my view, is that the writer insists on the immoral character of actual trade union demands, but not on the essentially unjust situation in which transition has been placing large sections of the population. The absence of a perspective based on justice is one of the most striking characteristics of Patapievici’s economic analyses: social justice is never part of the moral economy he advocates, premises making reference to social justice are not part of the normative backgrounds of premises which legitimize his claims, nor are they invoked in the reconstruction of any antagonist’s position.

Other types of moral considerations are occasionally presented as counter-arguments to the moral position defended by the protagonist. In the essay “Non-performing loans: a national institution”, Patapievici (1999b) constructs another argument on the need to close down unprofitable industrial units. What is in focus this time are the state banks’ practices of granting “non-performing loans” (loans which are not repaid and are eventually written off). A counter-argument is invoked on the side of the governing party and public opinion: the “humanitarian argument”, i.e. unless loans are granted, “people will die of hunger”, “it is inhumane” to close down the “black holes”, which the protagonist dismisses as “false”, “aberrant”, “irresponsible”, a “perfidious” and “clever form of propaganda”, etc. “Everything is immoral” in the policy of granting loans, he argues, because “the lazy and the incompetent” are thus being “rewarded for their laziness and incompetence” (while “the cost of rewarding the lazy is paid for by those who have succeeded through their diligence and ingenuity in being competitive”) and “because it penalizes the good, rewards the bad by using the money of the good”, etc.

The normative background underlying the writer’s claims is apparently one in which it is immoral for the state to force the population to pay the costs of keeping unprofitable industrial units alive, but it is moral for society to disclaim any responsibility for the fate of the people who are made redundant as a consequence of reform (e.g. the “idea that society as a whole has a responsibility towards the unemployed” is dismissed as mistaken). “Economic rationality” is again invoked, against the government’s position and public opinion. What is moral is related explicitly to considerations of economic efficiency, ownership and personal merit, and is expressed in pragmatic, utilitarian terms: it is better and “more moral” for some Romanians to sacrifice themselves in order to save the economy as a whole; not accepting this sacrifice will “kill us all, slowly and surely”. On the contrary, it is immoral that those who have succeeded economically should have to pay for the “lazy” and the “incompetent”. 

This purely neo-liberal moral economy is not set in opposition with one based on justice, but with one based on “humanitarian” considerations. As elsewhere, Patapievici prefers to talk about charity rather than bring justice into discussion. This is consistent with his broadly Hayekian (2001) position on social justice as a self-contradictory and primitive, “atavistic” concept. Charity seems to be legitimate, on his view, but only as an individual duty; state charity (i.e. the humanitarian argument) is not. Thus, the overt focus on “humanitarian” considerations functions conveniently to obscure other possible ethical perspectives, particularly an ethics of justice, and thus constructs an impoverished standpoint for the opponent. Like argumentation against straw man positions, the protagonist’s argument evades the issue of what ought to be done, by showing only that the government is not doing what it claims to be doing, and that would-be charitable measures are ruining the economy. To the extent that justice is a value of public morality and charity is a value of private morality (Miroiu, 1999), the argumentation here is also irrelevant (and violates rule 4, the “relevance” rule): it is irrelevant and misleading to represent measures taken by the state as dispensing charity. The focus on humanitarian considerations is nevertheless rhetorically effective in positioning the antagonist as a recipient of charity which he does not deserve, rather than a claimant for rights that are due to him. Dialectically speaking, the protagonist manages once more to change the focus of the difference of opinion and to avoid addressing an issue that would weaken his standpoint.

The moral perspective involved in these essays seems to be based on a combination of notions of “entitlement” (along the lines of Nozick’s, 1974, libertarian conception) – e.g. people who are not productive are not entitled to ownership of what other people produce – and of “desert” (talented, hardworking people deserve more than untalented and lazy ones) (Swift, 2001). There also seems to be an “utilitarian” ethics at work: it is immoral to claim advantages for a minority if in so doing you are damaging the interests of a majority. An “ethics of virtue” is also sometimes invoked as a normative ordering source. The writer defends a neo-liberal entrepreneurial type of identity or culture, which resembles the “enterprising self” (“enterprise culture”) of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain (Keat and Abercrombie, 1991). “Those who have succeeded through their diligence and ingenuity in being competitive” are set in contrast with the “lazy” and “incompetent”, the “good” are contrasted with the “bad” (Patapievici, 1999b). Various argumentative moves can be considered fallacious, insofar as they oversimplify and distort the positions involved: it is presumably more than “laziness” that accounts for the unprofitability of the state sector; it is debatable whether personal diligence and inventiveness necessarily ensure competitiveness and success, whether salaries are low in the state sector – for instance in education – because teachers are “lazy”, whether Romania’s capitalist class are rich as a consequence of being honest and hard-working. Along similar lines, in “Back to the economy”, Patapievici (1999c) constructs an entrepreneurial ideal of the individual, as a man capable of taking risks, engaging in competition, etc. He insists that the strength of the “man-in-the-street” lies in his “willpower” (“if he uses it well, he is strong”, etc.), in his freedom of choice, etc. – a utopian view which indicates, as I argue in the next section, a surprising blindness to objective difficulties that set limits to what people can realistically accomplish through their effort and willpower.

On the other hand, the moral economy that underlies the antagonists’ argument is not presented as a coherent moral conception. To the extent that such a moral conception can be pieced together from these essays, it is one defined in terms of social protection, humanitarian considerations, concerns for the public good – these are either acknowledged as presumably valid concerns (the “public good”) but shown to be pursued in a hypocritical way, or rejected as leading either to self-contradiction or to negative consequences. Various negative moral values are attached to the moral perspective of the antagonists (laziness, deceitfulness, a desire to profit from the work and property of other people). These are used to suggest that the entire moral conception on which the antagonist’s position rests is immoral.

Evaluation of the argument. Conclusions

How does the argument developed in “The trade union question” measure up to the normative requirements for good argument(ation) adopted here? In terms of the argument’s dialogical engagement with other potentially relevant views, there is very little orientation to difference in the moral perspectives involved: the writer chooses not to address moral perspectives (e.g. justice, rights) that would challenge his position. There is also no acknowledgement of alternative views in the way the actual problems of Romanian economy are diagnosed. Beyond a predictable public agreement on the existence of “shortcomings” and “deficiencies”, the precise identification of these problems is not as uncontroversial as the writer presents it. One might ask: are trade union demands, or the “black holes” really the problem? would closing down these industrial units effectively solve the problem? An exclusive focus on the unprofitable state sector in these neo-liberal terms obscures the magnitude and complexity of the issues involved, and therefore obstructs substantive dialogue. In general, the arguments developed in Patapievici’s economic texts end up as defences of neo-liberal solutions to neo-liberal problems, in spite of the fact that such particular ideological affiliations are not acknowledged as such.

There is very little substantive dialogue with the position of the employees represented by the trade unions: nothing is said about the objective constraints that people working in the state sector are faced with – poverty, lack of alternative employment possibilities, etc. There seems to be no “empathy” with these people’s position, no readiness to argue a point from the premises of the opponent: the discussion proceeds not from an acknowledgment of people’s poverty but from how people are violating economic logic; the normative premises of the antagonists are systematically distorted and rejected (people are allegedly asking for limitless privileges, not demanding legitimate rights and a minimum living standard), etc. 

Casting the discussion in terms of free market entrepreneurial virtues suggests, unrealistically in my view, that solutions to Romania’s problems are more easily available than one would imagine, if only the right attitudes (economic culture, “mentalities”) could be internalized by the population, if only transition to a truly free market could proceed without the obstacles that people place in its way. A serious engagement with the “structural”, “hard” constraints on transition (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2003, 2003a) is relegated to the background, and the working population is made responsible for failing to adapt to the logic of the free market. Nothing is said either about the other state sectors (education, health, culture, public administration), where salaries are also extremely low and whose trade unions have never been able to obtain significant increases in salaries. There is moreover no engagement with the consequences of the standpoint that is being advocated, no realistic assessment of the consequences of structural reform for the population. Objections, counter-arguments, alternative views are not incorporated into the argument, and to that extent they are not made “visible” (Thompson, 1995) for the public, nor given any recognition.

The argument’s “dialectical” tier (Johnson, 2000) is insufficiently developed. Not only is there little substantive dialogue with a variety of potentially relevant positions but those positions that are engaged with serve to divert the argumentation onto irrelevant lines. For instance, the critique of the state as allegedly acting from “humanitarian” considerations displaces the possible question of the responsibility of the state for dispensing social justice. The critique of trade unions as damaging the economy displaces a possible focus on the catastrophic situation of the population employed in the loss-making and other budgetary sectors and on the consequences and costs of a radical restructuration of the economy. The potentially legitimate concerns and difficulties experienced by a range of social categories are thereby made invisible for the reading public and to that extent, such texts fail to open up “social dialogue” in a genuinely democratic, impartial, critical way, and to contribute effectively to the construction of a democratic public sphere.

In the course of my analysis, I have addressed several instances of “strategic maneuvering” where the arguer’s rhetorical objectives prevail over the dialectical objective of subjecting a standpoint to systematic critical discussion.  I have also discussed the way in which the protagonist’s own standpoint is never called into question, never subjected to critical discussion, but presented as inherently true, logical and moral. Though effective from a rhetorical point of view, this type of strategic maneuvering is not dialectically acceptable: it is not in accordance with critical conduct to present one’s standpoint as unquestionable. Other instances of strategic maneuvering are also obstructions of critical discussion: the way the protagonist appears to argue from the premises of the “ordinary citizen” while effectively ignoring or misrepresenting the latter’s standpoint, the way he constructs an alleged consensus with the audience on matters which are controversial, the way in which he chooses to define the antagonist’s standpoint in a self-serving way that will make it easy to defeat, and to suppress alternative economic and moral perspectives.

The way in which the defence of forms of neo-liberalism, libertarianism, conservatism, and of a radical “shock therapy” approach to economic reform is conducted in these essays indicates the absence of a concern for justice and for the consequences of reform on the population, and does not attempt to provide a critical and balanced assessment of a wider variety of interests and views on matters of common concern. To that extent, such essays fail to contribute to public reflection on matters of common concern, fail to facilitate “social dialogue” and reveal a surprising absence of human concern, understanding for and solidarity with the social groups most affected by economic transition.

MODELE SI TEORII NORMATIVE ALE ARGUMENTARII: PRAGMA-DIALECTICA.

ANALIZA UNUI TEXT DE H.-R. PATAPIEVICI

Rezumat

Lucrarea analizeaza un text de H.-R. Patapievici ("Problema sindicala", Revista 22, 1999), din perspectiva unor teorii normative ale argumentarii, în special din perspectiva  pragma-dialecticii (van Eemeren and Grootendorst, 1992, 2004 etc.). Textul lui Patapievici construieste un argument împotriva miscarii sindicale din Romania post-comunista, vazuta ca "daunatoare" si "inutila", o expresie a "nerusinarii" si "ipocriziei", o forma de "santaj" etc. Utilizez conceptul pragma-dialectic de "manevrare strategica" pentru a arata cum, la toate etapele argumentarii, autorul (ca protagonist) face acele alegeri care favorizeaza obiectivele sale "retorice" în detrimentul celor "dialectice",  i.e. în detrimentul idealului normativ al unei discutii critice, vazute ca procedura de punere sistematica la îndoiala a unui punct de vedere, de maximizare a oportunitatilor de a examina puncte de vedere alternative. Scopul analizei este de a evalua argumentul în raport cu un model normativ si de a determina, în urma reconstructiei premiselor factuale si normative explicite si implicite, ce tip anume de "economie morala" (Sayer, 1999) este sustinuta argumentativ în eseurile lui Patapievici. În opinia mea, "Problema sindicala" nu ofera un exemplu satisfacator de discutie critica: protagonistul îsi construieste o pozitie aparent infailibila, imuna in fata oricaror obiectii, evita sa ia în discutie posibile contra-argumente, obiectii, reprezentari alternative ale punctelor de vedere ale antagonistilor etc. "Economia morala" în favoarea careia argumenteaza autorul este exclusiv de tip neo-liberal/ libertarian, în care valori politice de tipul dreptatii sociale si drepturilor individuale sunt delegitimate în numele unei "logici" economice pretins unice, iar preocuparea pentru saracie si alte forme de injustitie care acompaniaza tranzitia româneasca, ca si orice forma de solidaritate sau empatie fata de pozitiile actorilor sociali dezavantajati sunt cu desavârsire absente.  

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