Changes in Work Ethic in Postsocialist Romania
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Monica Heintz Changes in Work Ethic in Postsocialist Romania PhD thesis University of Cambridge 2002 Acknowledgements This study is a result of two distinct intellectual projects: one is concerned with giving an interpretation of the Romanian socio-economic crisis in its ethical aspects, the other with the development of social anthropology over time. The two projects could not develop independently and the study was conceived as an inseparable unit. A number of people had a direct or indirect influence on this work. I would like to thank first my supervisor Dr. Frances Pine who has been a constant support and inspiration. Also in Cambridge Prof. Marilyn Strathern, Prof. Alan Macfarlane, Dr. Suzanne Hoelgaard have helped me clarify important points during the development of my work. I owe much to my fellow students in the writing up seminar, especially for their discussions on methodological issues. Special thanks are due to my first readers, my own parents and to my husband Christophe Heintz. I could not imagine how the thesis could have been written without Christophe’s critical eye on the logic of the argument and for his much appreciated discussions on numerous field facts. Finally Laura and Henri, my only children at the time, should be especially thanked for putting up with an increasingly absent-minded mother. If I dedicate this work it would be however to those who have inspired it most directly, the people whom I am referring to in the next pages. Abstract My research aims to explain a double phenomenon: the first is Romania’s social- economic crisis, the second the popularity of explaining this crisis by reference to the Romanian ‘mentality’ (in Levy-Bruhl’s sense). The concept through which these two paradoxes clarify each other is the concept of work ethic, which is the main object of my research. The restricted definition of work ethic as ‘principles of conduct in work’ is elaborated throughout the study in order to explain the values, attitudes and practices of work. Its redefinition takes into account the influence of practices on work values and the negotiations between different categories of employers and employees concerning the practice and values related to work. The tension between changes in work values and continuities in work practice generates a break between ideal and practice, pretending and being, which continues the duplicity of the socialist period and leads to a lack of self- respect, both individual and national. My research is based on fifteen months of fieldwork in Bucharest, Romania (July 1999- October 2000) in service enterprises. This economic sector has been chosen for the difficulty to evaluate work within it, which sometimes makes work ethic the sole guardian of work practices. I carried on intensive fieldwork in three service enterprises, each representative of a segment of the labour market. I also followed the employees in their private lives in order to see how other types of work- domestic, second jobs, work in the informal economy- were performed. The observation of client-employee interactions in daily life, interviews, the consultation of legislation and statistics, of mass media, of Romanian sociological and philosophical writings completed the observation of the three main sites. The thesis attempts to offer a cultural explanation of certain social and economic problems that Romania confronts today. Through my proposed redefinition of work ethic perceptions of capitalism and of its ideological liberalism, of individualism and of work are also analysed. Chapter 1 : « Romanian mentalities » and the ethic of work A. Introduction My research started with a double paradox. One was the social and economic crisis with which Romania was still struggling 10 years after the 1989 revolution. The other was the explanation of this crisis by Romanian officials and media in terms of ‘mentalities’- a term that has been discarded a long time ago in social anthropology. The concept that brings these two paradoxes together in my research is that of work ethic, which I define, following Weber, as values of work (1984[1930]). From the way Romanians use the term ‘Romanian mentalities’ and connect it with the economic crisis, it appeared to me that the paradoxes are about work ethic, though this is not so named. The term work ethic itself is not used, having been tacitly banished from discourses after 1989 because of its link to the socialist regime. The description of faulty Romanian mentalities very much resembles what a social scientist would define as work ethic. What is it that allows us to refer to an economic crisis in Romania and what makes this crisis appear paradoxical? Is there a term of comparison that would justify this label, which would lead us to see the present state of the economy as ‘abnormal’? None of the comparative terms used by analysts allow us to measure precisely the extent and the causes of the crisis: neither the comparison with the socialist period, nor the comparison with other ex-socialist states, nor with other periods of transition or reconstruction, which other European states have known. Multiple differences in given circumstances could be found responsible for the difference between Romania’s present situation and the situation of other European countries. Concretely, in 2000 Romania’s GDP was only 76% of the GDP of 1989, one of the worst years of the socialist period; during the last 10 years the economic growth has been negative; and around half a million people of a total population of 23 millions left the country to immigrate to more prosperous countries. Does this constitute an economic crisis? Is it a paradox that after 10 years of transition from socialism to capitalism, from ‘evil’ to ‘good’ as political discourses represented it, the economic situation does not show any absolute progress? In the absence of valid terms of comparison, the paradox stems rather from the discrepancy between the expectations after 1989 and concrete economic figures. Most groups of the population inside the country and most international organisations outside became impatient. For the former, the 1989 revolution failed to keep its promises: the 2 economic situation worsened and Romania became more vulnerable in the international arena. For the latter, Romania did not live up to the requirements attached to foreign aid. While dissatisfaction inside the country led to targeting, as scapegoats, first the socialist legacy, and next the neglect on the part of the West as well as the corruption and disorganisation at the top political level, since the end of 1997 a ‘blame us’ discourse started to parallel the others. This might have been influenced by the dissatisfaction manifested by international bodies, but was especially triggered by the need of the new government to justify itself against the accusations of the population. Indeed, despite the crisis in neighbouring ex-Yugoslavia, in July 1997 Romania was not invited to join NATO- the main target around which the population had been mobilised and on the basis of which the centre-right Coalition won the November 1996 elections. The year 1997 saw a rapid economic decline, growing corruption among the new top officials (formed primarily by pro-Western intellectuals) and especially the disappointment that the standard of living remained low despite progressive and promising policies (validated and encouraged by the European Commission). If before 1996, (i.e. when ex-communists were still in power) most intellectuals could hope for the economic benefits of political change, after 1997 (i.e. when policies based on the Western model were implemented by intellectuals themselves, with no positive result), the intellectuals started to blame the economic failure on the ‘mentality’ of the population. Social and political analysts’ explanations were propagated by the media, entering everybody’s home and, surprisingly, quickly became a popular theory. This is how the ‘Romanian mentality’ became seen by everybody to be the final responsible factor for the inertia and disorganisation of the country. There is nothing paradoxical about the fact that Romanians explain their economic failure in terms of mentalities, though the consensus around this explanation is astonishing. This attempt appears paradoxical only to the Anglo-Saxon social anthropologist, who meets here the challenge of explaining the same phenomenon (or only translating it?) in modern social scientists’ terms. The Romanian use of ‘mentalities’ reveals two understandings of the term. The first is a definition akin to Lévi-Bruhl’s (1910) of mentality as a structure of thought proper to an ethnic group; the other is synonymous to ‘culture’. In both definitions, ‘mentality’ is an essence shared by all Romanians, the origins of which could be traced back to the national history and the 3 national landscape. The Romanian mentality in the first sense could be defined in the same terms in which Constantin Noica, a Romanian philosopher, defines nationality: a unique conjuncture in which we are born. As he remarks, ‘the sky is not seen in the same way from every point of the earth’. In the second sense, mentality, unlike nationality, could be changed, and this change (very much seen as a historical evolution) is what officials and analysts hope to trigger by their discourses. My attempt in this study is to offer a cultural explanation of the economic situation in social scientists’ terms, while taking into account the explanation in terms of Romanian mentalities, because of its important place in Romanian culture today and of some important theoretical intuitions it carries with it. The two paradoxes noted could solve each other. Economists and analysts failed to explain the economic ‘paradox’ because they did not take into account cultural parameters- the explanation in terms of mentalities opens the way for this. Meanwhile, developing the ‘mentalities’ explanation in concrete, analytic, useful terms could solve the paradox caused by the seriousness with which a fuzzy, outdated explanation is put at the heart of national strategies.