COMMENTARY—Beyond Reductionism in Critical Accounting Research

Abstract

The increasing colonization of public spaces by organized corporate interests and the neoliberal discourses advanced by them poses a major challenge to the possibilities of democratic dissent. Under the influence of corporate interests, governments continue to retain and legitimize tax cuts for the rich, accelerate economic growth, reduce welfare rights, liberalize trade, deregulate, hire more police, undertake more prison building, and advocate tougher action against dissenters as solutions to social inequality, unemployment, crime, environmental degradation, religious intolerance, ageism, racism, gender discrimination, and other social problems (Chomsky 1999). In effect, governments routinely act as recruiting sergeants for organized corporate interests (Monbiot 2000). They invite and facilitate major corporations, aided by an army of accountants and lawyers, to descend upon local communities, make their money, and move on. Those bearing the cost of corporate profits, power, and laissez-faire economics struggle to develop the resources and organization to call political parties, governments, and corporations to account. Despite the rhetoric there is little effective social accountability. The institutions of accountancy and accountancy calculations have played an active role in fostering and legitimizing social problems through their role in the payment of poverty wages, discrimination, privatization of public assets, environmental degradation, organized crime (money laundering), loss of pensions, jobs, homes, and the shifting of tax burdens from the rich to the poor, just to name a few (Mitchell et al. 1998a, 1998b; Sikka et al. 1999; Cousins et al. 2000). A recognition of the complicity of accountants in such effects contributed to the emergence of “critical accounting” as a respectable, middle-class, European academic discipline. During the past 25 years, a large number of critical accounting papers and books have been published. Yet, there is little evidence to suggest that critical accounting has had any significant impact upon public policies and discourses. Perhaps the situation would be even bleaker in their absence. Nonetheless, for academics concerned about the contribution of their work to change, in addition to knowledge, it is a disappointing and frustrating outcome. It is not surprising, therefore, that some (e.g., Tinker 2001) are advocating a more “resolute” or “hard-line” approach founded upon a version of Marxism. Such an environment poses major questions about the tactics and strategies that critical accounting academics can mobilize to deepen the crisis of liberal democracies and speak “truth” to power.