IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2017 - 83

human agreement, such as money, financial statements,
and government, where many facts about them are
"objective" in the sense that they are not a matter of preferences, evaluations, or moral attitudes. These contrasts
with such facts as that Mount Everest has snow and ice
near the summit or the water molecule has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, which are facts that
are totally independent of any human opinions.
Our social constructions of accounts are attempts to
reduce uncertainty (seeking certainty or truth?) through
model construction in order to expand our knowledge
of reality. However, the language of asset, cost, expense, liability, and profit that informs accounting is
often less precise; the objective measurement of what
an asset or an expense is, for example, is often dubious. Contestable profit (or loss) measurements have
real consequences: share prices may fall, bank branches may be closed down, CEOs may indulge themselves
with higher rewards, there may be mass layoffs of workers, loans may be granted, and so on.
The obsession with efficiency places primary emphasis on control over resource utilization, which is done
through accounting and information technologies. The
accounting profession can be regarded as a technology
that subjects individuals to the "objectifying" gaze of
distant regulators, a system of surveillance that stimulates a style of self-regulatory behavior [1, p. 299]. Subjects must constantly act and behave as if they are
being watched and will at any time be forced to account
for themselves. This technically ambiguous and not so
readily transparent practice, with its abstraction from
operational detail, can lead to tangible freedoms, or the
lack of them. Gaffikin [6, p. x] agrees that accounting is
reflexively being affected and affecting the socio-economic and political spheres, through its "processes and
enabling of technologies of economic control."

Society of the Spectacle
This paper argues that although it is a step forward for
accounting research to recognize both the "objective"
and the "subjective" as valid concerns, it is a mistake
to pose a dichotomy between the two or to suggest
that there are two different kinds of researchers (objectivist and subjectivist) who focus on one realm of experience or another. This view resonates with that of
Gaffikin [6, p. x] who believes that all knowledge is:
.. subject to the interlinked elements of language,
history and culture. Knowledge is only seen to be
knowledge when it is communicated. The dominant media of communication is language, a system of signs and symbols accepted within and by
a society and culturally agreed upon. This system
evolves through time, not in any linear fashion but
SEPTEMBER 2017

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Innovation, outsourcing, and
decapitalization represent the
fundamental tenets of the
new capitalism.
as and when the need arises, which suggests
meanings are never absolutely fixed. To be a truly
intellectual activity, a discipline must embrace a
broad appreciation of human thought and knowledge. Accounting influences decisions made in a
great many areas. This is often recognised with
some derision - after all, we are merely the
"bean-counters." If we are to rid ourselves of this
yoke, accountants must take a broader perspective of their profession to advance it beyond simply
reflecting economic considerations, although
these are undoubtedly important. However,
accountants must not hide behind the misguided
mantle of merely being there as neutral representors of an economic reality.
In a sense, Gaffikin's view of accounting, as a complex communicative symbolic exchange, offers a similar interpretation to Debord's [7, p. 2] "society of the
spectacle," when highlighting the central ontological
problem with our accounting role as "neutral representors" in commodifying authentic social relationships
(being), into economic exchanges (having), which we
account for using financial representations (represented). The significance of this view lies in how the
construction of our role, as "neutral representors" of
economic events and exchanges, obfuscates the potency of our role in the pacification and de-politicization of
resource allocation tensions.
For example, the spectacle of international and
regional wrangling over economic governments' bailouts and rescue packages due to the 2008 Global
Financial Crisis and the continuing European Debt Crisis, only overwhelms its observers and disconnects
them from the powers that control their lives. The spectacle of the Arab Spring is another case in point. The
disenfranchised populace are out in force making their
discontent heard, but nevertheless are completely
oblivious to who should be blamed for their miserable
condition? Some blame the politicians and foreign governments, while others blame corrupt institutional
structures and the financial institutions, while the
spectacle and its euphoria goes on, but away from the
perpetrators of exploitation and injustice!

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