 Politicisation of the professionsAnthony Tinker and Aida Sy International Journal of Economics and Accounting, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 61-66 Abstract: Accounting can never be 'neutral' or 'independent' vis-à-vis its relationship to major social conflicts and controversies. This is a major implication of the case studies. 'Neutrality' or 'independence' has a fairly precise meaning in this context and is not based on rather vague notions 'evenhandedness', 'refusing to take sides' or a 'policy of non-interference'. Policies of 'inaction', far from being 'neutral' or 'independent', are highly partisan if they involve 'standing-by' and allowing injustices to happen. Many policies of 'non-interference' are, in reality, conspiracies with the status-quo: rather than being neutral and independent, they represent neo-conservative political stances. Professional independence and neutrality is defined here in terms of the capacity to affect social outcomes (usually the distribution of income or wealth). Conceived in these terms, there are very few cases where accounting can be said to be 'neutral' or 'independent'. 'Inaction' or 'non-interference' would not be apolitical or neutral according to this definition if, by refusing to influence a situation; one allows a particular social result to prevail over others. Keywords: accounting profession; concepts of independence; neutrality; accounting theories; professions; policies. (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijecac:v:8:y:2017:i:1:p:61-66 Access Statistics for this article More articles in International Journal of Economics and Accounting from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd |
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