Accounting and social conflict: Profit and regulated working time in the British Industrial Revolution

Steven Toms and Alice Shepherd

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, 2017, vol. 49, issue C, 57-75

Abstract: We demonstrate that social movements can use accounting for progressive purposes, and that such outcomes can be promoted where they are aligned with the material interests of key fractions of capital. Such fractionalization is a function of technology and labour process, underpinned by adopted ideology. Alignment with social movement objectives overcomes the class belongingness of accounting that limits its progressive role in normal circumstances. We illustrate the role of accounting in achieving limitations to working hours and child labour, drawing on accounting evidence used to resist and support factory reform during the industrial revolution. We compare the evidence on costs and profits presented by both sides in parliamentary hearings and also with data revealed from the business accounts of the main protagonists. These comparisons show that assumptions about cost behaviour were used to exaggerate or mitigate the apparent effects of reduced working time on profits. Regressive fractions of capital were unable to resist change because they failed to consistently monopolize accounting information to impose a dominant narrative about the consequences of regulation.

Keywords: British Industrial Revolution; Accounting information; Production costs; Labour process; Social movements; Factory reform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J21 J31 K31 L50 L67 M4 N13 O14 O15 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:49:y:2017:i:c:p:57-75

DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2017.03.002

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