Contributions of post-structuralism and post-modernism to the development of accounting thought. The views of Norman Macintosh

Aportes del posestructuralismo y el posmodernismo al desarrollo del pensamiento contable La perspectiva de Norman Macintosh

This paper reviews Accounting literature from post-structuralist and post-modernist perspectives, out of the works by Norman Macintosh. I used hermeneutics as a methodological resource to disentangle the deep meaning of Macintosh’s claims, its philosophical foundations and the criteria of his coetaneous thinkers. Macintosh’ interpretative activity stems from literary theory, advances to structuralism and then to post-structuralism where he addresses the use of deconstruction. The last post-structuralist scenario the heteroglossic accounting, which takes that a given text can receive different readings which allow different interpretations for different purposes.
The next level of analysis is the post-modern shift, which introduces interpretations of accounting as a dispositive of power, that allows control, by the idea of panoptic, according to which it is possible to watch the actions of a population in a given space, without being observed, and develop a disciplinary community. Finally, Macintosh holds that reports lost their real referents and constitute a system of auto-referential signs, what produces the confusion of subject and object, by substantiating concepts. From this, arguments on truth are developed to indicate that it is not an absolute value, but a subject of perspective, diversity, partial and committed.
Macintosh explains the problems of theory and accounting information but leaves two points open. He does not disclose the processes of measurement and valuation, he considers them a unified action, and leaves veils on the comprehension of problems related to truth, wealth and property; his analysis of accounting as a dispositive of power only considers the actions of watching and punishing in one direction, from the powerful to the subordinate, and ignores the political power that allows citizen control on the enterprises.