Accounting in hybrid forms of capitalist/socialist enterprises: A multiple interpretative approach to the Royal Factory of Silk of San Leucio, 1802–1826

Abstract

The aim of this article is to describe the role played by accounting in an industrial company in which elements of utopian socialism and capitalism co-existed. The case is the Royal Silk Factory founded by King Ferdinand IV at San Leucio, near Caserta in 1778. The article covers the years 1802–1826. In this hybrid institution, double-entry bookkeeping (DEB) was adopted to calculate the minimum profit rate owed to the capitalist shareholders, while ‘labour accounting’ measured the workers’ performance. The surplus value was shared between the enterprise and the workers. This article makes a number of contributions to the accounting history literature: First, it adds archival evidence of accounting practices in Italian industrial companies; second, it supports the close connection between DEB and capitalism; third, it shows that the accounting system is set up to reflect the different social organisation of a manufacturing company; and finally, it illustrates how the accounting system makes the wealth-generating and wealth-distributing processes accountable.