By a marxist-inspired approach 'whose central concern (is) to study and influence the role of free

creative activity on changing and shaping ethical, social, political, and economic life along
humanistic socialist lines'

In communicating reality accountants simultaneously construct it (hines 1988) and accounitng is a

social practice within political struggles and not merely a market practice guided by equilibrium in
an efficent market.

Argued that accounting does not produce an objetive representation of economic 'reality' but
rather provides a highly contested and partisan representation of the economic and social world.

Accounting's essence can be best captured throung an understanding of this impacts on inviduals,
organizations and societies.

However, what these perspectives have in common is that they seek to highlight, oppose and
change the perceived role of accounting in supportingt the privileged positions of some people in
society.

Within this marxist critique, owners of capital are regarded as having(unfairly) accumulated their
wealth by the historical exploitation and expropriation (over several centuries) of the value
created by workers ( or labour), workers are seen as feeling alienated both form society and from
the products they produce, as their lives are largely controlled by external and impersonal markets
rather than by their own free choices.

Marxist theorists argue that as the capitalist syste operates in a manner which aliwenates workers
(and the working class) and is riddled with inherent structural contradictions (such as the one
discussed in the last paragrahp), it is fundamentally unstable. This inherent instability will, it is
argued, manifest ifself in diferrent symptoms in diferrenteras, such as unemployment, inflation,
economic depression.

Policies to address these symptoms are therefore regarded as acting at a relatively superficial level
and, rather like pharmaceutical products that treat the symptoms rather that the underlying
causes of a disease, will do little in the long term to cure what marxists regard as the deeper
malaise of capitalism.
Many of thes sympoms, and\or the social unrest caused by these symptoms, are regarded by
marxist scholars as threatening to undermine the power and wealth of capital (to quote marx:
caqpilatism produces its own gravediggers. Therefore, the privileges, power and wealtrh of capital
are regarded by marxist as being unstable, and owners of capital will take action to defend their
privileges, power and wealth.

Critical accounting theorists regard accounti ng as a powerful tool in both enhancing the power
and wealth of capital, and in helping to protect thisw power and wealth form threats arising form
the srectural instability of capitalism.

In this section of this chapter on critical accounting theory, we consider how critical accounting
research differs form and\or complements social and environmental accounting research, as it
might be consideres that both are seeking substantial changes in social practices.

The critical perspective adopted by many critical accounting researchers in grounded in political
economy theory.

The view is that society, polities and economics are inseparable, and economic issues cannot
meaningfully be investigated in the absence of considerations about the political social and
institutinal framework in which economic activity takes place, relating these arguments specifically
to accounting.

Political economy theory has been divided into two broad streams

and others have classified ads classical and bourgeois political economy. The burgeois political
economy perspective does not explore strctural inequities, sectional interests, class struggles and
the like. It accepts the way society is currently structured as a given.

CRS may do more harm that good because it gives the impression of concern and change but, in
fact, will do no more that allow the system to 'capture' the radical elements of, for example,
socialism, envoconmentalism or feminism and thus emasculate them.

Critical theorists argue that any such emasculation (undermining or weakening) of theses
movements, which seek to protect and advance the interests of groups or entities often regarded
as negatively afeected by capitalism.

Thus, while to many of us call for greater disclosure of social responsibility information would
seem to be a movre in the right direction, somre critical theorists argue that such efforts are
wasted unless they are accompanied by fundamental changes in how society is estructured. They
would tend to argue that the disclosure of corporate social responsability information only acts to
legitimize, and not challenge, those providing the information.
However by 1991, puxty had taken his critique a stage futherin arguing that by leaving basic social
structures intact, social accounting can even lead to legitimation ‘since the powerful can point to
their existence as evidence of their opennes in lestening to criticism, it paves the may for… The
extensión of power.

one is ussing the very process (current economics and accounting) that that caused the problem
(environmental crisis) to try to solve the problem. this is known as the process of juridification and
it is well established that one is unlikely to solve a problema by applying more of the thing which
the probkem.

He argues that the terms sustainability and sustainable development have been captured and
used by the powerful business sector to make their unsustainable practices appear safe thereby
protecting and enhancing the wealth of the owners of these corporations.

G1970s and in the 1980s there were moves by particular governments around the world towards
deregulation

The united states and the united kingdom. Around this time, researchers working within the
positive accounting framework and researchers who embraced the efficient market hypothesis,
came to prominence. These researchers typically took an ante-regulation stance, a stance the
matched the views of thge views of the government of the time. Coincdentally perhaps, such
research, which supported calls for deregulation, tended to attract considerable government-
sourced research funding.

More fundamentally, studies adopting the ECA approach have focused their attention