Accounting paradigms and neoliberalism. A Gramscian interpretative analysis of the evolution of the asset-liability view and revenue-expense view in Italy and the United States (1891–1991)

Abstract

This article proposes a historical analysis of the evolution of both the asset-liability and the revenue-expense views as accounting paradigms functional to the expression of the hegemonic relations exercised by the ruling classes in their social contexts. Focusing on the United States and Italy, the study outlines the common trajectories of the development of the revenue-expense accounting system after the initial classical asset-liability phase. It then highlights the differences in terms of the subsequent changes that drove the United States to new asset-liability positions of a financial connotation, whilst, in Italy, they were more oriented towards the consolidation of the revenue-expense view. The research methodology is based on critical accounting history lenses, using Gramsci’s concepts of Integral State, ideology, and intellectuals to analyse and understand the above developments. The study concludes that the asset-liability paradigm, which has been spreading in the United States since the 1960s, has characteristics that are useful for the neoliberal ideology and the implementation of its programme, contributing to the cultural hegemony of financial capitalism. In Italy, on the other hand, there has been the persistence of the revenue-expense paradigm, which has characteristics less compatible with the aforementioned ideology. Central to this dynamic has been the mediation of intellectuals in the accounting bodies of Civil Society and in the apparatuses of Political Society. These paradigms should, therefore, be the subject of renewed interest in the debate of the international scientific community, as well as in professional practice, in order to support the strengthening of a role of accounting intellectuals functional to the interests of the subordinate classes, for a truly emancipatory function of accounting with respect to the current dominant hegemony.