ABSTRACT
Probably the main argument for using social theory in writing about accounting is that it provides frameworks within which we can articulate how accounting is used, mis-used and abused by those with power or those who wish to gain power over others. Social theories provide explanations of how power is established and maintained, and why those who lack significant levels of power in society find it difficult to break down institutions and barriers. A study of accounting provides social theorists with evidence of how power can be achieved through communications which are persuasive or which silence the possibility of alternative actions. Accounting also provides evidence of relationships, ties and threads that hold members of society in certain relationships. In the last chapter, I touched on how accounting by its nature is
powerful and showed that accounting can be communicated in ways which are powerful because of the rhetoric, persuasive power or acceptance of the numbers, images and words used. In this chapter, I am more interested in
how people use numbers, words and images to maintain positions of power, to challenge inequality, to resist the introduction or use of accounting practices, and to resist those in power. On the one hand, we are looking at how accountants serve those in power – governments, corporations, management. On the other hand, we also need to consider how accountants gain and use the power that they have as a profession, and how this affects other social relationships. There is no clear definition of power in social theory. Power has been
explored in terms of hegemony – the dominance of one political or cultural group over another in society – but also in terms of those able to make decisions and influence others to carry out the actions required as a result of those decisions. The abilities to acquire and allocate resources, to assume leadership and to exert authority are elements of power but it does not necessarily have to also be oppressive: power can be productive and enabling. There are some pretty obvious uses of accounting by powerful entities
that cause outrage: tax avoidance, overgenerous executive remuneration and austerity measures, for example. The egregious use of budgets, financial statements and performance measures to extract large dividends and bonuses on the one hand, and pay poor wages and cutthroat prices to suppliers on the other is well-known. In all cases, accounting rules and routines may be followed but reinforce a construction of society in which some are entitled to wealth, and others are not. ‘Accounting is a partisan practice involved in distributive transfers of wealth’ (Arnold, 2009) and the rules under which accounting practices operate are written by dominant groups in society and reflect the political and economic positions. In the 1970s and 1980s, much of the critical writing in accounting was aimed at just this: exposing the supposedly rational economic basis of financial reporting and showing that accounting numbers were anything but benign and neutral.
