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...[to say that]‘all profit representsthe exploitation of the working classes....”’(Emmanuel et al.,1990,p.34).It argues that
accounting is the most important control system because it provides investors and managerswith objective measures of the generation and realisation of surplusvalue.‘Objective’means
reference to measurable phenomena that exist independently from the‘subjective’and,therefore,immeasurable states of mind of the observing subject.It does not mean verifying
management’s use of detailed rules,but that the phenomenon exists independently of theaccountant’s rules.The paper provides further support for the view that the object underlying
accounting profit is surplus value(Bryer,1998,1999a,1999b).It resuscitates Littleton’s
(1953,p.18)search for the“basic concept which makes accounting different from all
other methods of quantitative analysis,...[the]central idea which expresses better than
others the objectives,effects,results,ends,aims that are characteristic of accounting—a
‘centre of gravity’so to speak”.The uniting theme of modern scholarship is precisely
that accounting itself has no‘central idea’,no‘centre of gravity’,no‘essence’.Miller
and Napier(1993,p.631),for example,say that“[t]here is no‘essence’to accounting,
and no invariant object to which the name“accounting”can be attached”.In contrast to theraditional view,many modern scholars assume that accounting measurement is incorrigiblysubjective.The paper challenges this core assumption.Accounting is not the only techniqueof management control,and it does not reflect or allow us to understand and control allaspects of an https://www.51lunwen.org/organisation’s reality.Nevertheless,accounting is the‘totality’of the controlprocess because it provides an objective framework within which all other control systemsand realities are subsidiary and subservient.1Management control was central to Marx’s view of capitalism in which‘capital’‘subor-dinates’and exploits labour.Capital was Marx’s shorthand for what he called‘total socialcapital’,the collectivity of all investors that began to form in the late nineteenth century1The paper avoids the charge of naive realism and empiricism(e.g.,Tinker,1988)by arguing that accounting
implements the‘calculative mentality’of capitalism that is both the historical product and the producer of objective
social relationships between capital and labour(Bryer,2000a,2000b).Tinker(2002,p.275)follows Quine(1980)in arguing that“empiricism suffers from inherent and irreducible ambiguities[because]...[e]mpirical work
always entails the simultaneous testing of...two theories:the substantive(i.e.Marxist)theory,and a theory ofmeasurement”.This paper,by contrast,follows Kuhn’s(1970)view that a good measurement theory(accounting)is implicit in a good substantive theory(Marxist).R.Bryer/Critical Perspectives on Accounting 17(2006)551–598 553and that today we call the capital markets.Capital owns the marketportfolio and demandsat least the required return on capital from every business enterprise(Bryer,1993,1994a).2
Within Marx’s framework,the function of financial accounting is to give capital an objectiverecord of the circulation of capital of an enterprise to allow it to control senior management
(Bryer,1998,1999a,1999b).The paper argues that the function of management accountingis to allow senior management to control workers,including subordinate managers.It showsthat Marx’s analysis of the circuits of capital gives us