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Critical Perspectives on Accounting (2000) 11, 131]153

doi:10.1006/ cpac.1998.0329
Available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

A CRITIQUE ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF


CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING: TOWARDS A
POLITICAL ECONOMY OF
CLASSIFICATIONTHE SEARCH FOR
OWNERSHIP
TONY BOCZKOU
Hull Business School, University of Lincolnshire and Humberside,
Cottingham Road, Kingston upon Hull, Hull, HU6 7RT UK
This paper is a critique on contemporary accounting1 classification studies. It suggests that such studies have thus far provided an inadequate
assessment of and explanation for extant international contemporary accounting diversity. This paper locates the discussion within a neo Marxian political economy, and explores how notions of structure and hierarchy central to the institutional traditions of economic liberalism and the
social priorities of capital have increasingly invaded the classification and
understanding of contemporary accounting diversity. It contends that such
classification studies are a product of capitalist desires to import and
assimilate increasingly distant realms of business life into the
capital]labour value relation/ contemporary accounting} capital relation.
Furthermore, this paper suggests that such classification studies fail to
recognise the impact of such social, political and economic arrangements
as they are increasingly reupholstered and redistributed by the changing
priorities of capital, resulting in a limited appreciation of the constitutive
power of capital and its influence on contemporary accounting.

2000 Academic Press

Introduction
In todays increasingly global society, an understanding of contemporary
accounting, its social context, its political influence, its economic consequence, and its international diversity cannot be reduced to a simple
Address for Correspondence:

E-mail: tboczko@humber.ac.uk

Received 21 December 1997; revised 10 November 1998; accepted 10 December 1998

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study of culture and society. It cannot be reduced to a study of derived


social and institutional values and arrangements. It requires a far more
detailed examination of the underpinning pressures that assist in forging
such social interrelationships and institutional interdependencies. It requires an appreciation and understanding of how the complex social
priorities of such institutional arrangements are increasingly affected not
only by the territoriality of inter-state politics, or the social pressures of
the labour market processes, but also by the increasing international
mobility and changing character of capital. As suggested by Castells
(1989) ...it is difficult to deny that processes of globalisation favour
capital rather than labour and the nation state as they come to occupy
different spaces and times (p. 45).
Whether culture and society are seen as simple anthropological notions, or complex constructs increasingly imported into the comprehension of abstract representations of social action, they are not static
products of antiquity. They are neither isolated nor protected from the
temporal and spatial consequences of the capital mobility. Indeed, neither culture, as a system of value based beliefs, or society, as a
collective of interdependent institutional arrangements are impervious to
the ravages of capital accumulation. They possess neither permanence
nor sustainable stability. They are intrinsically ephemeral} influenced not
only by the chaotic nature of political and economic change, but perhaps more importantly, by the increasingly complex social pressures and
priorities of capital2.
To be clear, this paper does not challenge the existence of a close
interrelationship between culture, society, and its derived social and
institutional arrangements. (For example, see Weber, 1949; Schrank &
Abelson, 1977; DAndrade, 1984; Swidler, 1986.) It does, however, reject
ingenuous interpretations of society that seek to reinforce an underpinning anthropological interpretation of culture and society whilst nonetheless implying the existence of a mythical mechanistic relationship
between subjectively and artificially compartmentalised aspects of polity
and economy (Parsons & Shils, 1951; Inkeles & Levison, 1969; Hofstede,
1980; Hofstede & Bond, 1988). Indeed, it rejects the willingness of
functionalism to assert that both culture and society can be isolated,
objectified, interpreted, and managed by the imposition of a false sense
of structure and hierarchy. This paper contends that such portrayals of
culture and society are a product of the priorities of capital, and thus
fail to appropriately reflect the sociopolitical ambiguities of such social
structures and hierarchies evident in contemporary society. Indeed, they
ignore notions of reflexivity central to the understanding of social action
in a global society characterised by institutional hybridity, and social
heterogeneity. They thus fail to fully appreciate how social and political
arrangements are constantly reupholstered, reconfigured and redistributed
by the global pressures of capital mobility.
In rejecting the over simplistic thesis of contemporary accounting as
either culturally or socially specific, this paper offers a discussion within
a predominantly neo Marxian political economy 3. It argues that the

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identification and classification of contemporary accounting diversity by


reference to social and institutional values and arrangements merely
contributes to extending contemporary myths of neutrality, objectivity,
faithfulness, and impartiality so important to sustaining the powerful
social influence of capital. Not only does it encourage the institutionalisation of contemporary accounting as an elementary by-product of such
social and institutional values and arrangements, it also assists such
institutional arrangements in camouflaging the social influence of operations predominantly derived from the increasingly competitive priorities
of capital. Indeed, as suggested by Cairns (1997), such simplistic classifications of contemporary accounting are ...of little relevance in the
complex world of the 1990s (p. 306). It is in this context that this
paper seeks to be regarded as a corrective. It seeks to offer a re-contextualisation of contemporary accounting within a framework of political
economy} within an understanding that seeks to transcend assertions of
contemporary accounting as a symbolic representation of social action
principally mediated through, and legitimated by the socio-political priorities of capital.
Following the introduction the second part of this paper provides a
critical interpretation of contemporary accounting as a created symbolic
space primarily coloured by the increasingly chaotic priorities of capital.
It explores how the ownership of contemporary accounting has, despite
its unity in difference quality become increasingly embroiled in the
market politics of international capital. In the all encompassing conflict
and crisis symptomatic of the increasing dominance of commercial capital, the escalating use of fictitious 4 capital and the chaotic structural
flexibility associated with its international mobility.
The third part of this paper explores how the structural flexibility of
capital as a system of social relations increasingly disciplined by its own
international mobility, has influenced, and indeed continues to influence
understanding of contemporary accounting diversity. The fourth part of
this paper explores how the dominant rationality of economic liberalism
} conditioned by the priorities of capital} has resulted in the promotion
of classifications that fail to adequately represent extant international
diversity in contemporary accounting. It comments on four established,
and (in a liberal context) fairly conventional classification studies, contending that in the absence of any critical cognisance of the eristic,
de-stabilising consequences of capital, such studies merely recycle the
functionalist structures of market driven economic liberalism.
The final part of this paper provides comment on the need for a
political economy of classification} the need to go beyond the complex
and powerful social and political influences sanctioned by the priorities
of capital that intercede in the development of contemporary accounting.
It offers some suggestions as to how a more critical and reflexive
approach to the classification of contemporary accounting could assist in
dispelling the institutional mythologies and fallacies that have for so
long limited such studies. Moreover, it suggests that such an approach
could facilitate an abandonment of the constraints imposed by processes

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of capital accumulation, and thus provide not only a greater appreciation


of ...what is really happening in the world (Cairns, 1997, p. 316). An
appreciation that could if only in a small restricted way assist in ameliorating or diffusing some of the more negative effects of capitals
increasing commodification of the social.

Contemporary Accountinga Unity in Difference


Inasmuch as contemporary accounting plays a central role in portraying,
evaluating and governing the extensive and expanding domains of
economic and social life, it is socially and politically significant. As
suggested by Arrington and Francis (1993), contemporary accounting is;
...intimately wedded to economic efficiency and capital growth, is implicated in a range of urgent moral issues that surround us today; an
economically ravaged environment, a de-skilled labour force, the social
dysfunctions of corporate power, the arbitrariness of the market as a
distributor of goods and life chances (p. 106).

It enables social and economic activities to be rendered knowable,


measurable, accountable and manageable at a distance (Boczko & Willmott, 1998) and in turn is frequently mobilised to adjudicate economic
claims between competing constituencies (Tinker, 1985). Increasingly associated with, and conditioned by the reflective assumptions of economic
liberalism such understandings, however illuminating, nonetheless fall
short of recognising the significance of the social relations that privilege
a fictional impersonality, rationality and neutrality of the marketplace as
a favoured medium of economic activity. They take no consideration of
the shared politico-economic struggles and associated demands that increasingly shape contemporary accounting as an information commodity.
Traditionalist descriptions such as ...an artefact residing in the domain
of the social (Hopwood, 1987, p. 213), and ...an ancient practice with
a distinctive modern power (Hoskin & Macve, 1994, p. 64), may provide
an opportunity to locate contemporary accounting within its socio-historical context (see Parker, 1981; Nobes, 1982; Miller et al., 1991), however,
such analysis fails to acknowledge the aesthetic flexibility, political utility
and social context of contemporary accounting. A politically contrived
representation that favours some groups rather than others (Cooper &
Puxty, 1996), contemporary accounting provides a mechanism through
which selected aspects of a consciously constructed accumulation process
sustained as a particular system of social relations can be defined,
mediated and legitimated (Bryer, 1995). Moreover, contemporary accounting has become reified as a collection of objectified techniques} a
product of the competitive socio-economic tendencies of modernity, and
the increasing dominance of capital. Yet despite modernitys ...increasing preoccupation with modes of representation (Harvey, 1990, p. 20),
and capitals increasing dependency on such abstract visualisations, con-

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temporary accounting is, contrary to the illusions of liberal economics


...anything but a neutral and unbiased technical activity (Gray et al.,
1996, p. 51).
Socially reified as providing an all encompassing representation of
economic activity, contemporary accounting has become explicitly implicated in modes of social regulation 5 } as systems of monitoring and
controlling economic activity, and, regimes of accumulation 6 } as systems
of rational calculation7 (Colignon & Covaleski, 1991). Thus locating contemporary accounting within a stable, utility maximising environment
assumes the possibility of an apolitical analysis of market place where
transactions are seemingly engaged in freely by autonomous buyers and
sellers enjoying equal rights. Little appreciation or reference to the
power and influence of the social relations of capital is made. Such
analysis rejects the overwhelmingly normative context of social structures central to the social utility of contemporary accounting and the
neo pluralist framework within which these transient institutional arrangements are selectively created and destroyed. Only in abandoning
the reflective symbolism8 closely associated with the functionalism of
economic liberalism can the pervasive influence of contemporary accounting as a social mechanism closely implicated in capital accumulation be revealed. Only by relocating the discussion to a setting most
closely associated with a Marxian critique of bourgeois political economy,
can the significance of such social relations be revealed. Social relations
that are rooted in and principally concerned with the promotion of
calculated distributional advantage} or profit accumulation. Indeed, moving beyond the comfortable assumptions of market competition helps to
reveal how the economic utility of contemporary accounting is primarily
coloured by an unacknowledged affinity with the priorities of capital. It
also helps to reveal how contemporary accounting has become deeply
implicated in the erratic socio-political geography of capitals turbulent
search for profit and gain} a symbolic space adopted, supported and
refined as a means of objectifying and adjudicating claims of capital in
its single-minded desire to accumulate further capital. Not only has
contemporary accounting become conditioned by the endless and incessant reorganisation of regimes of accumulation, it has become closely
associated with the increasing commodification9 of society and the temporal and spatial displacement10 of capital itself, its internationalisation
and indeed fictionalisation.
Whilst utopian and idealist characteristics such as representational
faithfulness, objectivity and neutrality may appeal to those of a traditionalist persuasion (Watts & Zimmerman, 1978, 1986; Soloman, 1991),
such rhetoric fails to appreciate the social dynamic of contemporary
accounting and the politics of its social construction (Hines, 1988). Increasingly developed as an active technology of capital accumulation,
and directed towards preserving and enhancing already dominant social
structures and hierarchies (Dillard, 1991), contemporary accounting has
become purposive rather than being inherently purposeful (Burchell et al.,
1980). It clearly possesses no aesthetic qualities other than those as-

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signed by human agency. Hence in privileging the priorities of capital,


contemporary accounting provides a created symbolic space through
which temporal and spatial fixes to capitals accumulation crises can be
selectively translated and communicated. Thus it has become inextricably
connected to capital as a tool of social domination that seeks to reinforce not only dialectical pressures of social history but also the contradictions that emerge from the intractable problems of social conflict
associated with the marginalist11 ideals and the economics of monopoly
capitalism. Consequently, contemporary accounting has become neither
secondary nor derivative to the social and institutional framework within
which it has become firmly embedded} it has become an integral part
of the post (neo) Fordist12 global culture of capital.
Indeed, in facilitating the appearance of naturalism in the social relationships of capital, contemporary accounting continues to serve to not
only provide a rationale through which the inherent difficulties of capital
accumulation and surplus appropriation can be resolved (Tinker, 1985),
but to also disguise capitals increasingly turbulent reorganisation of
society. As a manufactured product of the growing inter-relationships
between modes of regulation and regimes of accumulation, the growing
mutual dependency of the social arrangements of capital on increasingly
sophisticated models of representation has clearly contributed to sustaining contemporary accountings social and political utility 13. Moreover, it
has assisted in concealing the ontological nature of contemporary accounting (Bryer, 1995). Thus in legitimating the actions of often select
and elite social groups, thereby ...amplifying their considerable power in
society (Richardson, 1988, p. 388), contemporary accounting has become seen as inseparable from the social, political, and economic interests it serves (Merino & Neimark, 1982; Cooper & Sherer, 1984; Tinker
et al., 1991). Indeed by homogenising activities in a manner that disguises the inequality of capitals relentless transformation of the society
(Eagleton, 1991), contemporary accounting has become seen as central
to the maintenance of a monopoly capital as a dominant social hegemony (Cooper, 1980). A mechanism increasingly cultivated14 as ideologically neutral, through which the advancement of such selected vested
interests continues to be defined, mediated, and legitimated (Power,
1994).
Understood in this way, contemporary accounting has thus become
inextricably connected to the troubles and priorities of capital and deeply
embedded in the very social system within which it is utilised to
engender and sustain a false consciousness of objectivity (Dillard, 1991).
Indeed, it has become overwhelmingly related to and influenced by the
transformative and speculative logic of capital. An integral part of an
adjudication process of exchange that not only seeks to create markets
but also help sustain belief in such markets and thus provide acceptable
overviews that ensure the reproduction of existing relations of power
(Willmott et al., 1993). It has become cultivated as a capital specific
commodity primarily endorsed by the dominant priorities of capital in its
increasing expansion into, and transformation of, the very fabric of

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society, and authenticated by the demands of the institutions and alliances competing for survival within the increasingly international market place. Hence, only by problematising contemporary accounting as
more than merely a symptom of and response to the crisis of capital
accumulation that emerge through tensions with and between hierarchical, market, and commutarian principles of social order, can the
socio-political context of contemporary accounting be revealed (Puxty et
al., 1987). Indeed, only by locating contemporary accounting beyond the
chaotic domain of post (neo) Fordist global capital, beyond its increasing
international mobility, can the influence of capitalisms systemic contradictions on contemporary accounting as a created representation of capitals temporal and spatial displacement (Boczko, 1997) be made visible.
Thus classification studies which fail to accommodate or acknowledge
any notion of the social hybridity and reflexivity advocated by the
increasingly international priorities of global capital15 must be interpreted
with caution for three very important reasons.
First, many of these studies whilst not explicitly, often implicitly support a functionalist and somewhat positivist interpretation of contemporary accounting, rejecting without critical comment, the socio-political
nature of contemporary accounting. Second, many of these studies,
perhaps unsurprisingly, only reinforce extant socio-economic perceptions,
beliefs and structures. These again neglect to consider the powerful
influence and effect of capitals increasingly flexible and fictitious structure on the technology of contemporary accounting. Third, whilst society
and culture may legitimately influence the processes through which the
effects of capital accumulations conflicts and crises are visualised
through contemporary accounting, their influence is increasingly indeterminate and transitory} constrained by the powerful vested interests
that compete in the international capital accumulation process. This is an
important point, and needs emphasising.
Whilst the society or culture specific thesis may be plausible in
some limited context, for example in respect to the development and
adaptation of territorial schemes of regulation, it is unlikely that such a
thesis could be used to formulate rational explanations of international
contemporary accounting diversity. Contemporary accounting has become
increasingly cultivated as a capital specific commodity} as an increasingly accumulation specific commodity authenticated by the fundamentals of capital accumulation. Influenced in some limited context by culturally derived modes of regulation, this influence has become increasingly diluted or negotiated away by the demands of the institutions
and alliances competing for survival within the increasingly international
and fictitious regimes of capital accumulation. The created symbolic
space of contemporary accounting, has thus become primarily seen as a
selected visualisation of the accumulation process, a result of demands
by the dominant and legitimating interests inherent in regimes of capital
accumulation rather than a product of social and cultural idiosyncrasies.
Contemporary accounting may well be influenced by the social, but it
has increasingly become a captured product of capital. Thus the use

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of social determinism} of institutional values and arrangements conditioned by the priorities of capital in understanding contemporary accounting diversity must therefore be regarded with cautious suspicion.
Such attempted interpretations are perhaps the anathema of the
economic} a fallacy born out of the idealism of economic liberalism,
and the increasing ontological insecurity16 associated with the increasing
social consequences of the changing character of the priorities of capital
on the global system (see Harvey, 1988; Giddens, 1981).

The Priorities of Capitalfrom Conflict to Crisis to Chaos


In its broadest sense, capital is an institutional system founded on
commodity production and exchange} a system that has been, and
indeed continues to be variously defined and interpreted17. An oppressive
and heterogeneous process of accumulation that increasingly fragments
and alienates sections of the very society in which it is embedded,
capital is more than merely a simple collection of transferable resources.
Indeed, it is more than a collection of productive resources18. It is an
institutional system through which processes of differentiation and rationalisation are legitimated} an institutional system through which technology and organisational structures increasingly develop ...subordinate
to the needs of capital accumulation (Clegg & Dunkerley, 1980, p. 5).
Ephemeral, transitory and influenced less by the priorities of socio-economic need than by the erratic and often disorganised interventionism
of market mechanisms (Lash & Urry, 1987), the institutional context of
capital, its increasingly fictitious nature and international mobility, is
neither predictable, nor in any ordinary sense stable. It is founded on a
social mobility that has been, and indeed continues to be constrained
by few discernible physical, political, or technological boundaries (Palloix,
1975, 1977). An invasive and dominating institutional system in which all
the advanced economies of the world have become increasingly implicated (Harvey, 1990).
Capital is thus dynamic, not because of the mythologised capacities of
innovation, but because of the coercive laws of competition and the
contradictions of class struggle endemic within its social interrelationships (Meegan, 1988; Hyman, 1991; Lovering, 1991; Bonefeld, 1993). It is
deliberate, not because a distinctive historical geography founded on a
single-minded desire to accumulate further capital, but because of its
enforced notions of opposition, rivalry and market competition. And, it is
destructive, not because of its search for speculative profit and gain, but
because of its endless and incessant expansion, reorganisation and
transformation of the very society within which it is embedded. It is this
transformation process that charms and disguises, creates and destroys
needs and wants, excites and exploits desires and fantasies, and transforms time and space, that is ultimately malevolent, derelict of conscience and responsible for its very own ever increasing crisis of accumulation19. Indeed it is this turbulent and erratic search for profit and

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gain } for new products and markets, new technologies, new spaces and
locations, new processes of organisation and control that has increasingly produced the very crisis of accumulation that capital seeks to
escape. A crisis in its transformative capacity that has increasingly undermined territorial autonomy, and national stability and self sufficiency.
It has expanded international dependency on the erratic flows of
socio-economic resources and information, and encouraged an increasing
preference for accumulation strategies founded on flexible and fictitious
regimes of capital (Harvey, 1990). An institutional restructuring in which
the priorities of capital have become increasingly divorced from, and
less a function of the competitive character of productive capital, and
more a consequence of and thus dependent on the international transferability of fictitious capital (Cerny, 1994). A sustained restructuring
through which not only has much of the geographical and temporal
flexibility of contemporary capital accumulation been achieved, but
through which social commodification, economic subordination and environmental abuse have been, and indeed continue to be rationalised.
Indeed, whatever delimiters 20 (Savage & Warde, 1993) are used to accommodate capitals complex transformation and reorganisation, capitals
eristic desire to import and assimilate increasingly distant realms of
business life into the capital]labour value relation 21 as part of its turbulent search for gain has become increasingly dependent on a structural
flexibility 22 associated with fictitious capital (Harvey, 1990; Hirst &
Thompson, 1996). A structural flexibility increasingly conditioned by the
vast intermediary economy of commercial capital23 , sustained by an
increasingly international service sector, and managed through the increasingly abstract representations of contemporary accounting.
Such an observation however, does not seek to diminish the social
and economic influence of productive capital. It only suggests that the
structural flexibility of capital, its dependency on commercial capital and
its derivative construct} fictitious capital} has become an increasingly
significant component of the global culture of post (neo) Fordist capital.
A reflexive flexibility so deeply entrenched within the turbulent priorities
of post (neo) Fordist global capital that it has become almost totally
reliant on contemporary accounting as a selected symbolic visualisation
of its accumulation process. It is perhaps unsurprising therefore that
from the late 1960s/ early 1970s through to the 1980s and 1990s onwards, the analysis and understanding of contemporary accounting diversity has almost totally been conditioned by the erratic needs and priorities of capital. By the political effects of increasingly dominant
market-based regulatory structures, and the economic consequences of
an ever competitive and ever uncertain international environment 24.

The Limits of TraditionUnderstanding Contemporary Accounting


Diversity
With few notable exceptions (Puxty et al., 1987; Robson et al., 1992), the

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vast majority of contemporary accounting classification studies have historically been influenced by an all too often functionalist analysis dominated by the institutional dogma of economic liberalism. An analysis in
which contemporary accounting has been conceived to be formed primarily through and on behalf of the structural interrelationship of capital
} through the (local) social and institutional values and arrangements
conditioned by demands of the accumulation process.
In this context consider the classification studies of Mueller (1967,
1968), Siedler (1967), Previts (1975) and the AAA (1977), the cluster
studies of Price Waterhouse (1973, 1975/ 6, 1979). The empirical studies
of DaCosta et al. (1978), Frank (1979), Nair and Frank (1980), and Goodrich (1982), and the judgemental studies of Nobes (1983, 1992), Gray
(1988) and Rebmann-Huber (1988). And, the increasingly culturally orientated studies of Jaggi (1975), Watts (1977), Gray (1985, 1988), Harrison
and McKinnon (1986), Salter and Niswander (1988), Belkaoui (1989),
Thomas (1989), Perera and Matthews (1990), Belkaoui and Picur (1991),
Perera (1994) and Gray and Vint (1995). From the traditions of inductive25
analysis with its evaluation and comparison of variations in accounting
techniques to the traditions of deductive26 analysis with its exploration
of derived institutional arrangements, few of these classification studies
have been tempted to stray far from the sanctity of liberal market
orthodoxy. Indeed, few of these classification studies have been tempted
to explore contemporary accounting diversity by reference to issues
other than those directly related to or contained within the increasingly
competitive structures of the priorities of capital. Thus in seeking to
classify contemporary accounting by reference to social and institutional
values and arrangements clearly conditioned by the demands of accumulation, such classification studies have emphasised narrow concerns related to the mechanical, the procedural and the technical aspects of
contemporary accounting. Indeed, in considering contemporary accounting to be no more than a functionalist/ capitalist reflector, such classification studies have failed to acknowledge contemporary accounting as
anything other than a biased created visualisation increasingly sanctioned by the priorities of capital. They have simply extended the understanding of existing institutional or cultural dogma, thus maintaining the
myths of neutrality and representational faithfulness pivotal to the tradition of economic liberalism.
Consider further the following widely cited studies 27 in more detail:
Mueller (1967, 1968), Nobes (1983) and Gray (1988).
Muellers (1967) study identified four distinct patterns of contemporary
accounting development. Guided by a pre-occupation with the functionalist arrangements of economic liberalism, Muellers classification was
clearly dominated by an underlying belief in the sanctity and rationality
of established socio-economic institutions. A belief very much evident
from language used by Mueller to differentiate his judgmental groupings; the macro economic pattern, the micro economic pattern, the independent discipline pattern, and the uniform accounting pattern. This
somewhat market driven theme was developed still further in Muellers

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(1968) groupings of business environments. Mueller maintained that such


a range of four judgmental groupings was ...sufficient to embrace
(contemporary) accounting as presently known and practised in various
parts of the world (p. 2), and proposed a ten country grouping (Mueller,
1968, pp. 92]95). Based almost entirely on the deductive analysis of
factors such as; stage of economic development, stage of business
complexity, shades of political persuasion, and reliance on particular
systems of law, Mueller concluded that varied combinations of such
factors would lead to the development of different schemes of contemporary accounting. Whilst undoubtedly correct, Muellers analysis was
nonetheless restricted by a consideration of socio-functional issues and
structures dominated by and promoted through the demands of the
marketplace. Nobes continued this socio-functional approach in his 1983
hierarchical classification of fourteen essentially Eurocentric capitalist
countries. Again located within a narrow rationalistic desire to embed
contemporary accounting into the social and institutional arrangements
and values of economic liberalism, Nobes (1983) study was again undoubtedly coloured by the structural constraints of the priorities of
capital. A prerequisite founded not only on an uncritical acceptance of
the social, political and economic arrangements, but also on the belief
that all self interested economic transactions must rely on some underlying bond to remain coherent. Although Nobes classification contained a
far greater degree of discrimination than Muellers (1967) study, the
adoption of Muellers prescriptive micro/ macro arrangement resulted in
Nobes study providing merely a refined elaboration of rather than an
improvement to Muellers (1967) earlier formulation28.
Nobes did provide some amendments to his 1983 classification (Nobes,
1992), suggesting that ...such classification studies should be regarded
as no more than a historical statement (Nobes & Parker, 1995, p. 71).
However, Feiges (Feige, 1997) comment that the structural constraints
contained within such classifications should nonetheless mean they
should be ...treated with caution (p. 119) is still relevant. Inasmuch as
such classification studies artificially compartmentalise highly complex
and value derived social activities and processes, classification studies of
this type disregard the interrelationships of such social activities and
processes; social activities and processes that are increasingly conditioned by the complex plethora of national and international factors.
Although Mueller, and indeed, Nobes, did acknowledge an interconnectedness between features of the broader economic environment, business
organisations, and national institutional factors, the importance they ascribed to such factors was fundamentally flawed (see Aitkin & Islam,
1996). This resulted in a failure to acknowledge and accommodate the
increasingly powerful and vested interests associated with the processes
of capital accumulation, and thus produced a misleading analysis of the
relationship between contemporary accounting and the social environment. Indeed whilst some limited empirical support has been offered in
respect to both Muellers (1967) classifications, and Nobes (1983) classi-

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fications, their classifications remain suspect, extremely limited and essentially hypothetical (Radebaugh & Gray, 1997).
By focusing less upon the institutional territoriality of contemporary
nation states and more on the generic socio-cultural values perceived to
be operationalised in accounting systems, Grays (1988) suggested classification study promised to depart from the predominantly institutionalist
nature of previous classification studies. In the event, however, Grays
study simply extended a relationship between the cultural environment
and contemporary accounting earlier hypothesised by Jaggi (1975)29. By
subsuming the cultural contextualisation of contemporary accounting
within a framework predicated on existing institutional relationships and
arrangements, Grays (1988) classification did not depart from the
socio-functional terrain of economic liberalism. Indeed, despite Salter and
Niswanders (1995) contention Grays classification provides a ...workable theory to explain cross national differences in accounting structure
and practice (p. 394), Grays (1988) classification study did little to
illuminate the influence of the competitive and chaotic priorities of
international capital. Whilst it is undoubtedly the case that institutional
and cultural factors do (in a limited context) condition contemporary
accounting (Boczko & Willmott, 1998) a focus upon such a vinculum
merely distracts attention from contemporary accounting as a social
construct increasingly conditioned by the consequences and structures of
capital accumulation. Such institutional arrangements, as products of the
increasingly endemic pressures of capital accumulation merely assist in
camouflaging the realities of capitals power over the social. Indeed such
classification studies not only fail to accommodate the overwhelming
influence of the priorities of capital on contemporary accounting, but
also fail to acknowledge the de-stabilising effects of capital and its
increasing commodification of human society. To locate the true ownership of contemporary accounting requires a wholesale rejection of such
uniformed naivete
and incessant historicity associated with economic
liberalism. It requires recognition of the social totality} recognition of
the inherent structures of power and control. Indeed, it requires a
critical political economy of classification} one that rejects extant arrangements that merely emphasises the political and economic dynamics
of capital. A political economy of classification that not only seeks to be
cognisant of the eristic effects of capital, but also suggestive of how
such classifications of contemporary accounting may be used to counter,
ameliorate, or even defuse some of the negative effects of the priorities
of capital.

Towards a Political Economy of Classification


Political economy 3 0 is part of a long tradition of criticism of contemporary social order. Whilst many variants of political economy exist, it is
essentially characterised by attempts to engage with prevailing social

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structures, and has become increasingly associated with a Marxian analytical approach, or more vaguely a dialectical orientation.
In understanding society to be comprised of complex arrangement of
interrelationships and interdependencies that contains numerous fissures
and distortions, political economy rejects the idealism of systems
thinking, the positivism of contemporary science, and the prioritisation of
either the local or the global. It does not take apparent social structures,
social processes, or accepted social history for granted, but seeks to
understand how ideology and history conceals processes that in one
way or another influence, oppress, and / or control others. In essence
political economy does not search for the causes of observed social
phenomena. Nor does it seek to satisfy itself with the interpretation of
meanings of social action. Political economy is fundamentally critical
because it aims to destroy the illusion of observed reality, and ask
substantive questions approximately extant social processes and structures. It seeks to ask questions not about the nature of issues, but the
circumstances within which such issues arise, and reveal the various
ways in which social processes operate as dominating and controlling
structures in defining, mediating, and legitimating knowledge of social
activities. Indeed, it directs attention towards the fundamental nature of
institutional arrangements and seeks to explore notions of power, class,
and conflict between such social constituencies exposing where appropriate the inherent contradictions and underlying myths of such arrangements.
Political economy is thus an epistemic tradition that not only seeks to
reveal ...the nature of oppressive social structures... (but)... point to
ways in which they can be combated through praxis (Harvey, 1990, p.
32). It seeks to understand the nature of the power relations that
mutually constitutes the production, distribution, and consumption of
resources (Mosco, 1996), and illuminate how specific sets of social
relationships facilitate the control and reproduction of extant structures
of social domination. It is thus an analytical agenda that rejects the
Weberian view that value neutrality can adequately define the relationship between the socially moral and the economically sustainable, and
seeks to understand social change as a process of ...historical interaction... rooted in socio-economic conflict (Clement & Williams, 1989, p.
7). It seeks to ...go beyond... (the)... technical issues of economic
efficiency and engage with basic moral questions of justice, equity, and
public good (Golding & Murdoch, 1991, p. 18), and is thus reflexive,
praxilogical and dynamic, encapsulating three fundamental imperatives31.
First, a normative context that seeks to go beyond conventional value
judgements, and leave behind a neo classical economic agenda that
elevates the efficiency of economic wealth maximisation over and above
the equity of social distribution. Second, a descriptive nature that seeks
to go beyond the ...ideologies of the status quo (Cooper & Sherer,
1984, p. 221), beyond simple rationalisations of the established view,
and understand the consequences of how symbolic representations impact on social action. And, third, a critical intent, that seeks to escape

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T. Boczko

the dominance of accepted theories and recognise not only the contested nature of such representations but also questions extant concepts
of what is or what is not in the public interest.
In this respect, a purposeful classification of contemporary accounting
} a purposeful political economy of classification cannot be constructed
upon the deductive/ inductive idealism of conventional market based
analysis. It cannot be structured merely on issues concerned with, or
related to the accumulation, regulation, realisation, and distribution of
profit. It requires a more radical context of analysis. It requires:
1. a recognition of the role of the market mechanism in the exploitation of entrenched power relations;
2. an acknowledgement of the vast constituency of conflicting interests that such mechanisms accommodate (Tinker, 1985); and
3. an understanding of how the impact of unequal exchange inherent
within the priorities of capital alienates large factions of the marketplace.
Thus a political economy of classification demands a radical de-emphasising of the market mechanism, and a rejection of contemporary
market arrangements and institutions as the prime units of social analysis. It demands an acknowledgement of the wider social context of
contemporary accounting} to accommodate issues of social alienation
associated with contemporary market relations, and illuminate the underpinning politics of externalised wealth appropriation associated with the
priorities of capital. A repositioning of contemporary accounting from its
narrow (and unfortunately widely accepted) character as a symbolic
space constructed through and enacted by the priorities of capital, to a
more emancipated notion of contemporary accounting. It requires a
denunciation of the traditional orthodoxy associated with the rationality
of conventional accounting or marginalist entity accounting, and an
acceptance of a more critical dialectic of social constituency/ emancipatory
accounting 32 , one that is cognisant of contemporary accountings unity
in difference quality. An acceptance of a dialectic that is accommodating to and sympathetic of the more radical and progressive notions of
contemporary accountings role in social conflict (Lehman, 1992), political
subordination, and economic alienation (Tinker, 1985). A critical dialectic
that is more accommodating of the role of contemporary accounting in
issues related to, or emergent from:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

the development and maintenance of social/ human rights;


the increasing international subordination of productive labour;
the consequences of increasing social and ecological degradation;
the social consequences related to sustainable human development;
the increasing displacement and alienation of factions of society;
and
6. the consequences of national/ international public policy changes.
Classifying contemporary accounting diversity by reference to whether

Classification

145

or not extant accounting practices provide for the measurement and


disclosure of such issues, or whether extant accounting regulatory structures facilitate or constrain the acknowledgement of such issues would
not only provide an opportunity to move beyond the historionics of
capital, but also provide for the possibility of locating contemporary
accounting diversity within a social context that transcends the imposed
institutional constraints of capital. Thus a purposeful political economy of
classification requires more than a simple acknowledgement of the complex interrelationships and chaotic interdependencies between social, political, and economic institutions and arrangements. It requires more than
a superficial accommodation of the endemic social pressures defined
and mediated through contemporary accounting at the behest of the
priorities of capital. It requires first and foremost a radical abandonment
of the artificiality of either deductive or inductive analysis and a move
towards classification in context. A classification that seeks to neither
prioritise or elevate either context or content, but seeks to simultaneously question the nature and underlying circumstances within which
such accounting practices arise, and, the fundamental nature of contemporary accounting regulatory arrangements.
Moreover, a political economy of classification requires a critical appreciation of the underlying function and purpose of what is being
classified} that is the real social context of contemporary accounting,
but moreover a radical rethink of the structure and focus of how it is
classified} that is a rejection of the structural functionalism of economic
liberalism. It requires a constructive acknowledgement of the reflexive
social role of contemporary accounting} a constructive restoration of the
social function of contemporary accounting together with ...all the conflicts and allegiances it entails (Lehman, 1992, p. 152). A restoration of
the social function of contemporary accounting that transcends the artificial economic and political confines of capital. A rejection of the intractable eclecticism of the conventional and traditional and a recognition of the pragmatic realities of the radical. More crucially a political
economy of classification requires an acknowledgement that the ownership of contemporary accounting lies beyond the priorities of economic
flows and capital accumulation, beyond the nationalistic sovereignty and
territoriality of political regulation and within the complex constituency
of the social.

Conclusion
Underpinning the discussion in this paper has been a desire to exercise
the ghost of economic liberalism. A call to reject the structuralism
imposed the complexities of accumulation and the increasing international priorities of capital that have for so long dominated the understanding of diversity and classification of contemporary accounting. Such
classifications have thus far concerned themselves with very narrowly
defined functions and characteristics of contemporary accounting, and

146

T. Boczko

have consequently provided a less than adequate reflection of ...what is


really happening in the world (Cairns, 1997, p. 316). Moreover, they
have merely endorsed extant liberal economic rhetoric contending contemporary accounting to be a created visualisation} a symbolic representation of the accumulation process irredeemably linked to the eristic
priorities of capital.
This paper has also contended that such classification studies have in
essence contributed to and assisted in creating and perpetuating an
ideology of accumulation, whose chaotic consequences have still to be
fully recognised in mainstream contemporary accounting literature. Only
by moving beyond the eristic features of capital can the true diversity
of contemporary accounting be revealed. Indeed, only through the developing of a critical political economy of classification which:
1. rejects the uncritical naivete,
uninformed structuralism and the incessant historicity of economic liberalism;
2. rejects the artificiality of deductive/ inductive analysis; and
3. recognises the notion of social totality, and the need for classification in context;
will an understanding of contemporary accounting diversity be made
possible. A political economy of classification that transcends the priorities of capital, surpasses the territoriality of the political and locates the
true ownership of contemporary accounting within the social.

Notes
1. The term contemporary accounting is used here to describe a ...regulated institutional
process, a constructed model... for reporting and communicating the impact of temporal and spatial displacements on economic activity and associated regimes of accumulation (Boczko, 1997, p. 13). The discussion is thus concerned with contemporary
accounting as an external reporting mechanism for profit orientated organisations.
2. The term priorities of capital is used here to emphasise the accumulation driven
structural and institutional arrangements that seek to privilege, prioritise, and indeed
legitimate the accumulation of further capital.
3. The term political economy is used here in the context of ... a study of social
relations, particularly power relations that mutually constitute the production, distribution and consumption of resources (Mosco, 1996, p. 25). It is in essence ... the
study of control and survival in social life (p. 26).
4. The term fictitious capital was historically used to describe capital that did not
productively employ labour, however, in a contemporary context it has become increasingly associated with an escalating use of credit. Indeed as Marx put it fictitious
capital is ... some kind of money bet on production that does not yet exist (Marx
quoted in Harvey, 1990, p. 107). In this context it is perhaps best described as any
financial instrument (including derivative instruments) other than the tangible commodity of money. In a contemporary context such instruments are often associated with
schemes of risk reduction and risk diversification. See also Harvey (1982, Ch. 9).
5. The term mode of regulation refers to ...the institutional ensemble (laws, agreements),
and the complex cultural habits and norms which secure capitalist reproduction. It
consists of formal and informal rules that codify the main social relationships
(Neilsen, 1991, p. 22). It includes, ...institutions and conventions which reproduce a
given accumulation regime through law, state policy, political practice, rules of negotiation and bargaining, culture of consumption and social expectations (Amin, 1994, p.
8).

Classification

147

6. The term regime of accumulation refers to ...set(s) of regularities at the level of the
whole economy enabling a more or less coherent process of capital accumulation
(Neilsen, 1991, p. 22). It includes, ... norms relating to production and management,
forms of exchange, principles of wealth accumulation, and patterns of consumption
and demand (Amin, 1994, p. 8).
7. For a detailed discussion on this issue see Weber (1947, 1961, 1968).
8. A reflective theory of representation (Hall, 1997) understands the use of signs and
symbols to mirror the world that they purport to describe. Or, as suggested by
Boczko and Willmott (1998, p. 1) ...its truth is assumed to be cleansed of power that
might otherwise defile or distort its accounts.
9. The term commodification is used here in a Marxian context to describe the
...way capital(ism) carries out its objective of accumulating capital or realising value
through the transformation of use values into exchange value (Mosco, 1996, p. 140).
In a conventional context this presumes an increasing use of competitive markets, an
important issue in the accumulation process since the most common embodiment of
capitalism is as ...an immense collection of commodities (Marx, 1976, p. 126).
10. The term temporal and spatial displacement is used here in the context of the
increasing international movement of capital as a product of time]space compression
(Harvey, 1990), or time]space distanciation (Giddens, 1991).
11. For a detailed discussion on the marginalist value theory underpinning contemporary
accounting see Tinker (1985, in particular Part 3, Chs 9]12).
12. The term Fordist or Fordism is synonymous with formalised and regulated mass
production, and a Keynesian mode of regulation} an accumulation structure that
emerged under the hegemonic umbrella and leadership of USA after World War II
(Esser & Hirsch, 1994). This Fordist accumulation structure is often associated with
those social theorists who seek to analyse social and structural change as a series of
transitions from one form of social capital to another. (See for example Aglietta, 1979;
Piore & Sabel, 1984; Lipietz, 1985, 1987; Boyer, 1988; Freeman & Perez, 1988; Harvey,
1990; Jessop, 1991.) Such social theorist suggest that the post (neo) Fordist regime
emerged out of a crisis of accumulation that was characterised by a running out of
options to handle the problems of over accumulation. Distinguished by a flexibility in
both productive capital and distributional capital, the post (neo) Fordist structure of
accumulation has become synonymous with a mobility of capital founded on flexible
accumulation (Harvey, 1990), and an increasing structural dependency on international
capital (Smith, 1984). It should, however, be noted that such functionalist explanations
of social change are by no means widely accepted. (For example, see Rusty, 1989;
Clarke, 1990; Bonefeld & Holloway, 1991; Pollert, 1991; Psychopedis, 1991.)
13. The term social and political utility is used here to emphasise that capitalism is
defined by the partially free flow of factors of production and by the selective
interference of the political machinery in the market. For a detailed discussion see
Wallerstein (1991).
14. The term cultivated is used here in preference to the term developed to indicate
the manufactured and ideologically biased nature of contemporary accountings representations.
15. For example see classification studies by Jaggi (1975), Burchell et al. (1985), Harrison
and McKinnon (1986), Cushing (1987), Gray (1988), Belkaoui (1989), Belkaoui and Picur
(1991) and Perera (1994)
16. The term ontological insecurity is used here as a product of created representations
or symbolic spaces were such ... created space replaces effective space as the
overriding principle of organisation (Harvey, 1988, p. 309).
17. In a historical context, the social character of capital accumulation has been interpreted using many alternative socio-economic paradigms. Such interpretations have
included:
v
v

economic liberalism with its concerns with private economic interests and market
freedom (see Smith, 1976; Friedmann, 1977);
economic sociology with its concerns with the relationships between economic and
non economic institutions (see Durkhiem, 1933, 1938; Parsons, 1937, 1951; Parsons et
al., 1953; Weber, 1978; Polanyi, 1944, 1977); and
Marxian political economy with its concerns with the influence of power structures
and social relations in economic life (see Marx, 1967, 1976; Ricardo, 1973).

18. In a Marxian context only productive capital is true capital (Harvey, 1990), and
created by labour in a process of commodity transformation. In this context, money

148

19.

20.

21.
22.
23.

24.

v
v
v
v

T. Boczko
capital (and / or finance capital) is seen as the created symbol of productive capital,
and commercial capital is seen as the process through which the accumulation of
productive capital, and increasingly in a industrial context, finance capital is mobilised.
History is littered with fraught attempts at identifying, minimising and were possible
alleviating, if only temporarily, the causes of these crisis of accumulation. Given the
foundations of capital accumulation rest on both the rational ordering of space (Marx,
1967; Harvey, 1990), and time (Marx, 1976; Landes, 1983), it is unsurprising that
attempts to mitigate the impact of these crisis of accumulation continue to be
formulated in the context of Marxs circuits of capital. Such attempts have often
comprised of schemes that not only combine characteristics of spatial and temporal
displacement, but increasingly the fictionalisation of capital.
Such delimiters include neo Marxist Regulation School approach, the neo Smithian
Flexible Specialisation approach, the neo Schumpeterian approach, the disorganised
capital thesis, or, the Flexible Accumulation approach. For the neo Marxist Regulation
schools socio political account and its emphasis on the increasing tension between
social modes of regulation and regimes of accumulation see Aglietta (1979) and
Lipietz (1985, 1987). For the neo Smithian Flexible Specialisation account and its
emphasis on the structural relationship between dominant economic and political
institutions see Sabel (1982), Piore and Sabel (1984), Sabel and Zeitlin (1985) and
Hirst and Zeitlin (1989, 1991). For the neo Schumpeterian approach, based predominantly on the premise of technological determinism reminiscent of Kondratievs long
wave theory, see Freeman et al. (1982), Schumpeter (1987), Dosi et al. (1988), Freeman
and Perez (1988). For the Disorganised Capitalism thesis, and its emphasis on an
increasing disorganisation of regimes of accumulation emerging out of the material
conditions associated with the powerful structure of class politics see Lash and Urry
(1987, 1993) and Offe (1985). For the Flexible Accumulation approach and its increasing emphasis on the impact of time]space compression and the increasing dominance
of fictitious in regimes of accumulation see Harvey (1987, 1990, 1991) and Harvey and
Scott (1988).
I am indebted to the external reviewer for this observation.
Harvey (1990) uses the term flexible accumulation as a descriptor of a post (neo)
Fordist regime of accumulation.
In this context commercial capital is seen as an intermediary economy between
productive capital and money capital (see Thrift, 1987). It provides much of the
rationale and impetus for the reduction of trade barriers, the creation of new markets,
and continued justification for speculation. Some Marxist theorists suggest that the
importance of commercial capital has been reduced as barriers to capital production
are removed by capitals internationalisation. This paper rejects this scenario and
suggests that commercial capital through its symbiotic relationship with the new
international division of labour and the rise of the service class (Sassen, 1991), has
become increasingly important as the global culture of capital has imposed its schema
on the accumulation process.
In an accounting context such economic consequences can be seen to have promoted
increasing discussion on, and concern with issues related to:
the rapid growth and development of complex business combinations and consolidation;
the valuation and recognition of tangible and intangible assets;
the uncertainty of income recognition due to price changes and exchange rate
fluctuations; and
the increasing use of derivative financial instruments.

25. Such classifications of contemporary accounting diversity are founded on an analysis


of individual accounting practices from which ...development patterns or groupings
are then identified and finally explanations keyed to a variety of economic, social,
political and cultural factors are proposed (Radebaugh & Gray, 1997, p. 67).
26. Such classifications of contemporary accounting diversity are founded on the identification of relevant environmental (including cultural and social) factors which are then
linked to national accounting practices from which ...international groupings or development patterns are proposed (p. 67).
27. These studies have been selected merely as representative examples of the conventional econometrically orientated classification studies.
28. Nobes (1992) has suggested that the strength of Muellers classifications was its

Classification

29.

30.
31.
32.

149

pioneering nature... (and)... its consideration of the context and development of...
(contemporary)... accounting systems (Nobes, 1992, p. 42).
Many accounting researchers including Burchell et al. (1985) and Harrison and McKinnon (1986) have pursued this suggestion. Indeed, Belkaoui and Picur (1991) contend
that ...the culture of a given country determines the choice of its accounting techniques and the perception of its various accounting phenomena (1991, p. 118).
For an interesting and indeed extensive review of the theories of political economy
see Caporaso and Levine (1992).
For an interesting discussion on a political economy of accounting see Tinker (1980).
For a full and insightful exploration of such imperatives in relation to contemporary
accounting see Cooper and Sherer (1984).
For a detailed discussion of conventional accounting, marginalist entity accounting,
social constituency accounting, and emancipatory accounting see Tinker (1985, Part 4,
Ch 14).

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