Accounting History and Accounting Progress

A. C. Littleton famously described accounting as “relative and progressive”. However, in recent historical accounting research, there has been increasing hesitation in describing accounting as “progressing”. This is largely because “progress” implies a degree not only of change but also of improvement, and historical accounting researchers, influenced by social science conventions, often regard describing accounting changes in terms of progress as involving improper value judgements. As accounting becomes an object of study less as a technical and more as a social phenomenon, consensus as to what constitutes an improvement becomes harder to secure. Within so-called “traditional” historical accounting research, use of a progressive narrative framework is not uncommon, although writers often describe accounting change as “evolution”. This term has multiple meanings and connotations, ranging from a simple view of slow and gradual change to a teleological view of history tending towards some ultimate end or goal. In some interpretations, evolution is seen as inherently progressive, while in others no claim to progress is made. In assessing the work of historical accounting researchers, care is necessary to ensure that their use of models of evolution or progress is accurately understood. On a broader scale, the idea of progress has been seen as characterising modernity. If accounting is itself regarded as progressive in the sense that the spread of accounting into ever-increasing contexts is regarded as a social improvement, then accounting is an important phenomenon of modernity. With the emergence of the post-modern critique of modernity, it is therefore not surprising that accounting comes under criticism, and its diffusion is no longer seen as evidence of progress. However, progress remains a useful narrative structure for historical writing, although it has rivals in terms of stories of decline, stasis, and recurrence. Available historical evidence is often open to different narrative structures, but those attempting to tell a story of change through time will find it difficult to avoid selecting one or other structure. Progress may have some attractions as a narrative structure for small-scale narratives of success, and even narratives of failure can be seen as progressive if we believe that we learn from past mistakes. However, in terms of general histories of accounting, the alternatives of a story of unbounded progress and a view of progress as movement towards an end may be equally unattractive. This is especially the case where progress is seen in teleological terms, where “the end of accounting” may be its apotheosis, but may on the other hand be its extinction. ACCOUNTING HISTORY AND ACCOUNTING PROGRESS INTRODUCTION In his pioneering history Accounting Evolution to 1900, A. C. Littleton describes accounting in the following terms: Accounting is relative and progressive. The phenomena which form its subject matter are constantly changing. Older methods become less effective under altered conditions; earlier ideas become irrelevant in the face of new problems. Thus surrounding conditions generate fresh ideas and stimulate the ingenious to devise new methods. And as such ideas and methods prove successful they in turn begin to modify the surrounding conditions. The result we call progress. (Littleton 1933: 361) Littleton is not particularly clear as to what he means by “progress”, although he implies that it lies in the ability of accounting to solve present-day problems. Littleton notes that accounting has not been static, and points to the growth in professional audits and the expansion of cost accounting as evidence of how accounting helps to solve problems of business planning and control. He claims to show how “accounting originated in known circumstances in response to known needs; it has evolved and grown in harmony with its surroundings; its changes can be explained in terms of forces current at the time” (Littleton 1933: 362). Littleton’s historiography is a dynamic one: accounting “came from definite causes; it moves toward a definite destiny” (Littleton 1933: 362). For a long time, I have found this view of accounting change a puzzling one. It seems to embody a teleology: a belief that accounting has some ultimate end to which it is tending. The path to this ultimate end may not be a direct one, which suggests that