The Perception of the Market and Patriotism in the Modern Russian Business

Abstract

Svetlana Barsukova — Vice Head, Laboratory for Sociological and Economic Studies, National Research University “Higher School of Economics”. Address: 20, Myasnitskaya St., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation. E-mail: svbars2012@gmail.com

Caroline Dufy — Research Fellow, Emile Durkheim Centre, Comparative Political Science and Sociology, University of Bordeaux. Address: 166, Cours de l’Argonne, Bordeaux, 33000, France. E-mail: c.dufy@sciencespobordeaux.fr

In this article we argue that concepts such as “market competition”, or “national economy”, or “economic partiotizm” do not exist per se. Instead they are intertwined into much broader strands that are classified into three different models, which are used to legitimatize economic action: the market model, the strategic model, and the innovation model. Each model has its own and inner coherence, but each of them embodies different conceptions and visions of the state and economic policy.

The present article, focusing on micro-level and grass-roots representations, examines how those official conceptions (market, patriotism, innovation) are perceived and reformulated by entrepreneurs and professionals. We pay greater attention to the different ways in which actors articulate the various market rules and protection measures implemented in the Russian economy. One of the main contributions of this article is to show the way interviewees articulate various models.

The market model is consistent, powerful and legitimate in actors’ rhetoric; it strongly supports their autonomy from the state. We show, however, that the strategic model promoted by the elites’ discourse is characterized by unsustainability, porosity and inefficiency. That does not mean that business actors eschew patriotism per se, but rather that they reject its official definition, with the ensuing state domination of business. Patriotism is, instead, reformulated and integrated into another space of meaning, the innovation model, built up from below, which distinguishes it from public programs promoting innovations. Patriotism, as demonstrated, is invoked when dealing with public authorities, thereby allowing private interests to be introduced into the public sphere. The market model, which appeals to liberal values, distinguishes the notions of “market” and “state” and emphasizes the confrontation between them. State intervention per se is ineffective and illegitimate, whereas the market is more efficient, but also morally superior to all other forms of social transactions. Many of our interviews illustrate this great divide between state and business. This rhetoric is specific to small entrepreneurs deprived of any access to state support and subsidies. Market boundaries are totally dissociated from national borders. The relevant economic space is that of each specific commodity market in which the different actors are specialized. However, there are significant differences between the attitudes and opinions of representatives of the various sectors: the agricultural business as more nationally oriented contradicts the sector of electronics as more global oriented. There is no consensus at all about the positive role of patriotism in the economy as has been demonstrated in this article. On the contrary, patriotism is seen as being unrealistic, ineffective and often illegitimate. In actors’ rhetoric, the market discourse is dominant. We examine how actors articulate liberal market values and situations of protection. In the interviews, two forms of protection from competition are sharply distinguished: protection is seen as illegitimate when it is bound up with the political sphere, but legitimate when it springs from productive structures and is shaped, for example, by natural impediments. Although patriotism is presented as incompatible with the market model, it can be endorsed by actors playing the role of citizen. This discourse expresses great tensions between the economic efficiency promoted by the market model and the patriotic rhetoric espoused by political leaders. Patriotism endorses a larger vision, one that encompasses the global interests of Russia in all their diversity. In practice, business actors are very wary about the leitmotif of patriotism, which seems to be a mere political label. The discourse of business actors undermines the rhetoric of the authorities, which vacillates between strategic interests and market rules. Such discourse is used to accuse large corporations of benefitting from vested interest positions, unlike small firms, which are bound by market rules. The political rhetoric of economic patriotism, instead of bringing communities together and then consolidating them, has the opposite effect: it splits society into blocs, opposing powerless people to elites, bureaucrats and business professionals.

We would like to show how different interests can be combined, how heterogeneous actors succeed in building appropriate justifications and in bringing them onto the public scene. The strategic rhetoric is often accused of masking real corporate interests. Economic patriotism comes across as a hollow concept. Actors’ discourse promotes liberalization on the global scale and protectionism in more specific contexts. This contradiction does not mean that the actors are insincere: their discourses are not false in themselves, it is just that they are pronounced in different spaces and contexts. Such multi-level discourse explains why it is so difficult to identify a coherent rhetoric of economic transactions.