>If you are referring to a formal system, then the rest of your comment actually is correct. But even in mathematics itself, codifying proof in a formal system is quite rare and practiced only by logicians, certain subfields of CS, and a few early adopters. edit: And, far more to the point, most arguments aren't and can't be mathematical in nature.

I disagree with your premise. I believe that all arguments rest of the degree of truth of their premises, and formal methods are used to prove that the degree of truth in the conclusion springs from the degree of truth of the premises. That is definitional - there's nothing else that I would refer to as an argument. Informal fallacies are also formal fallacies, they're just a way of categorizing fallacies that are written in human language rather than mathematical language.

>The problem is that you're assuming arguments cost nothing -- in terms of money or effort -- to produce.

No, I'm not.

>Right, well, I claimed that a lot of marketing is argument construction. So yes, there are other aspects to most marketing as well. But argumentation is certainly part of it.

I'm only interested within this thread about the portion of marketing that is argument construction and analysis, and not in conflating argumentation with rhetoric, marketing, or propaganda. This is not to deny that those fields do use argumentation, along with the sciences, history, literature, theology, and all other fields.