Rhetoric and the Agonistic Moment of S-D Logic

This chapter examines the rhetorical structures and strategies embedded in the document that forms the foundational moment of S-D logic, the 2004 Journal of Marketing article by Vargo and Lusch. It describes the ways in which the authors construct a rhetorical history that drives their portrayal of the logic and the manner in which they expound it. As such, this chapter deconstructs the mythic framework around the inception and evolution of S-D logic that works to persuasively position the work as an inevitable, organic continuation of the evolution of general marketing thought. Of central importance in this analysis is a consideration of the part played by agon (generative struggle) and kairos (opportune timing) both in the rhetorical argumentation articulated by Vargo and Lusch and in the framing constructed through editorial decisions around the article’s presentation. The chapter also investigates the rhetorical energy generated through the particular choices of lexicon in the foundational paper and it finishes by advancing a rhetorically-derived formulation of the core value proposition at its heart.