Available online at http://www.idealibrary.com ondoi:10.1006/cpac.2002.0544Critical Perspectives on Accounting (2002) 13, 451–462

CRITICAL ACCOUNTING IN SCOTLAND

CHRISTINE COOPER

University of Strathclyde

This paper considers the contemporary role of critical academic accountants.Arguably, academics have been to some extent cut off from the “real world”writing fairly inaccessible papers for each other. Critical accounting academicsare certainly concerned with theory but too often they try to develop their theorywithout active engagement in the outside world. This could have had the effect ofmaking them rather pessimistic about their own agency and the potential for socialreform. The paper draws upon the academic and political work of Pierre Bourdieuas an illustration of an academic who has managed to fuse theory and practice ina more optimistic manner. Critical accounting in Scotland is considered from thisperspective. The case of the Clydebank asbestos sufferers is highlighted as anexample of where critical accounting researchers might like to test their theoreticalskills. The paper also discusses the campaign to end tuition fees in Scotland andthe Centre for Social and Environmental Research which is based in Glasgow.

c© 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Academic Pessimism?

Before I begin to discuss “critical accounting in Scotland”, I thought that I shouldtake a few steps backwards to consider the role of critical academics in general.In part this means that I can avoid discussing “what I mean by critical accounting”,although, as you will see from the discussion here, I am clear about what I seeas the role of academics who claim to be “critical”. I start by briefly reflectingupon the key academic social theorists of the twentieth century. This is, in part,because these theorists (including Foucault, Derrida, Althusser and so on) havehad a profound influence of what is broadly described as critical accounting, butalso because in some strange sense one might expect that these critical socialtheorists could act as a kind of academic role model—yet too often they seemto fail in this. It is certainly worth speculating, following Callinicos (1999, p. 308),“about whether a connection exists between the political pessimism common to somany social thinkers over much of the past century and their increasingly markedtendency to take up residence in the academy” (emphasis added). The biographies

Sadly Pierre Bourdieu died on 23 January 2002 in Paris. His death robs us all of one of France’s greatintellectuals and activists. He was truly committed to fighting for a better world.

Received 5 July 2001; accepted 12 November 2001

4511045–2354/02/$ - see front matter c© 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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of individual social theorists of the twentieth century record a steady march deeperand deeper into the universities. While of course some early theorists like Smith andHegel were there from the start, “we see other social types, the man of letters, thejournalist, the politician, even the revolutionary organizer, progressively replaced bythe professor” (Callinicos, 1999, p. 308). The placing of radical thinkers (or potentialtrouble makers) into academic institutions appears to have been a wise politicalstrategy by various states.

Arguably, the placing of great thinkers within universities has had the effectof granting a few institutions the ability to exert extraordinary influence overthe development of theory1. The most notable example of this is the EcoleNormale Superieure which produced the majority of French social theorists of thetwentieth century including Durkheim, Lyotard, Althusser, Foucault, and Bourdieu.The atmosphere they thrived under was one in which the participants wereconfidently placed within long-term relationships of friendship and competition asthey ascended the academic ladder. But while the Ecole Normale Superieureproduced wonderful theorists, the habitus of these theorists would surely have hadsome impact upon the type of social theory they produced. Arguably it produced atype of inward looking pessimism (Callinicos, 1999).

Russell Jacoby (1987, p. 5) lamented the decline of “public intellectuals, writersand thinkers who address a general and educated audience”, in the US since WorldWar II. Jacoby argues that a number of trends—for example, suburbanization, inner-city gentrification, university expansion—have destroyed the old urban Bohemiaswhere such intellectuals have flourished, and made the academy their only refuge.As Callinicos puts it

In the self-contained university world, intellectual life is specialized and professionalized:academics, even those who think of themselves as political radicals, write for each otherusing an idiom which renders their work unintelligible to those outside.

Perhaps the itinerary of the Frankfurt School is emblematic of this larger process: Marxismbecomes “critical theory”, a body of thought elaborated in the academy at long removefrom any political practice, profoundly pessimistic about the possibility of social revolution,and expressed in allusive and arcane language. In what is, however, all too common afeature of cultural life at the end of the twentieth century, an avant-garde activity has nowbeen massified, as innumerable academics engage in what Althusser called theoreticalpractice, matching Adorno and Horkheimer in obscurity of expression, but not, alas, innovelty of content. (Callinicos, 1999, p. 309)

In short, academics at the beginning of the twenty-first century write theoreticalpieces, which hardly anyone reads, mainly for each other using impenetrablelanguage. Even Marxist theory has to a large extent been divorced from politicalpractice.

While most of us manage to make our work impenetrable, few of us can matchthe insights of great social thinkers. Yet, I can’t help but feel that intellectualpessimism about the possibility of social change is alive and well in much criticalaccounting work. Many academics who describe themselves as critical do not seemto believe in the possibility of social change and certainly never strive to changethe world, preferring instead to concentrate on theory alone or upon work whichis strangely separate from contemporary social movements. There are of course

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notable exceptions. I hesitate to single out any critical accounting academics herefor risk of causing offence to those whom I have negligently missed out.

A role model

Few academics have demonstrated an awareness of this pessimism or a desireto escape from it. A notable exception is the academic and critical theorist PierreBourdieu. (See Neu et al., 2001 for a more in-depth discussion of Bourdieu’swork.) Bourdieu is all too aware of the elitist position of education in the Westand he draws attention to the socially situated character of academic discourseand the elitist class position it all too frequently defends. As a way out of thishe calls for specific political intervention by intellectuals. This intervention isdescribed by him as the Realpolitik of reason (Bourdieu, 1996, p. 348). By activelyintervening to try to bring about progressive social change, academics can developtheir theoretical understanding better and eschew their pessimism. Poignantly foraccounting academics, Bourdieu (1998, p. 125) sees academic intervention as aserious response to the threat of neo-liberalism which he describes as “a returnto a sort of radical capitalism answering to no law except that of maximum profit”.Apart from the negative economic and social impact of this type of capitalism, it alsorepresents the “autonomy enjoyed by the universes of cultural production in relationto the market, which had increased continuously through the struggles of writers,artists and scientists, is increasingly under threat”(1998, p. 127). To Bourdieu (1996,p. 340), it is here that intellectuals have a role to play:

Intellectuals are two-dimensional figures who do not exist and subsist as such unless(and only unless) they are invested with a specific authority, conferred by the autonomousintellectual world (meaning independent from religious, political or economic power) whosespecific laws they respect, and unless (and only unless) they engage this specific authorityin political struggles. Far from there existing, as is customarily believed, an antinomybetween the search for autonomy (which characterizes the art, science or literature we call“pure”) and the search for political efficacy, it is by increasing their autonomy (and thereby,among other things, their freedom to criticize the prevailing powers) that intellectuals canincrease the effectiveness of a political action whose ends and means have their specificlogic in the fields of cultural production.

Thus, according to Bourdieu, it is by virtue of the authority they gain from theirposition in autonomous fields of cultural production that intellectuals can actpolitically. Bourdieu (1996, p. 344) goes on to argue that “it is especially urgenttoday that intellectuals mobilize and create a veritable International of Intellectualscommitted to defending the autonomy of the universes of cultural production”.Paradoxically then, intellectuals should cross the border separating theory andpractice in order to secure it. Honourably intended though this position undoubtablyis, it serves to underline how deeply entrenched the idea of a radical disjunctionbetween theory and practice has become even among those intellectuals who wishto situate it historically and sociologically (Callinicos, 1999).

The insulation of social theory from other activities poses the question of theparticular interests this separation serves. Bourdieu’s formula of a “corporatism ofthe universal” proposes the intellectual as Hegel’s universal class, whose socialposition requires it to defend the general interests of society at large, and indeed

454 C. Cooper

those of reason itself2. This is one of my theoretical concerns about Bourdieu’swork3. I believe that it is mainly impossible to think about “the public interest” whensociety is divided into antagonistic social classes. Our society is one which hasrival interest groups—rivals which are structurally rooted in irreconcilable classdifferences. Moreover, as a working class woman, I would not wish to go alongwith a theory which places academics as part of an “elite”, since this would leaveme out of it. I also have concerns about Bourdieu’s neo-structuralist stance on thequestion of what he describes as “cultural capital”, which academics are supposedto have in great measure. The type of cultural capital which I would like academicsto acquire can only be fully developed by active engagement in the world. As suchit cannot remain elitist.

Therefore, I have some theoretical concerns about Bourdieu’s work. However,Bourdieu presents a vigorous, optimistic antidote to the pessimism which hasgripped many social theorists and critical intellectuals. I applaud his engagementwith the various currents of resistance to capitalism in France since December 1995,and pursued in Seattle in November 1999. Bourdieu’s status as a politically engagedintellectual has only fully emerged in the past few years. This could be described asa direct consequence of the new mood in France opened up since the strike waveof December 1995 (Wolfreys, 2000). I believe that Bourdieu’s political action and hisunity of theory with practice could usefully serve as inspiration for all academics.Paradoxically, however, his characterization of the role of the critical intellectual asone of developing ideas that might be useful to the social movement implies a tacitacceptance of the division of labour between intellectuals and workers which theclassical Marxist tradition seeks to break down, as alluded to above4.

Wolfreys (2000) carefully traces the work of Bourdieu and his colleagues asfollows. They set up a publishing house, Liber/Raisons d’Agir (Reasons to Act),and have used it to produce a series of reasonably priced, accessible bookscovering a range of issues, almost all of which have reached a wide audience.The first to be published, Bourdieu’s Sur la Television (1997), sold over 100 000copies and his Contre-feux (1998) over 50 000, while Serge Halimi’s attack on themedia, Les Nouveaux Chiens de Garde (1997) has sold over 150 000. Others, suchas the collective work Le ‘Decembre’ des Intellectuels Francais, on the effect ofDecember 1995 on France’s intellectual elite, have all enjoyed similar success.The accessibility of much of Bourdieu’s and Liber/Raisons d’Agir’s material isan exemplar which could be followed by critical accountants. This isn’t to arguethat academics should eschew theory. On the contrary, it is to argue that theoryand practice should be merged and the complex picture they produce should bedisseminated in an understandable form.

Some of the academics connected with Raisons d’Agir have gone on to create anInternational of intellectuals. There are now groups in Germany, Belgium and also ina number of French towns, notably Grenoble, forming part of a growing network ofmilitant think-tanks, reviews and associations of various kinds all fighting, in diverseways, the effects of global capitalism. The Fondation Copernic was established inNovember 1998 as a rival to the right-wing Fondation Saint-Simon. Other newlyformed associations include the unemployed workers’ associations AC! and APEIS,the homeless association Droit au Logement (DAL), the SUD trade union and

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the loose Groupe des Dix federation of which it is a part, numerous anti-fascistand anti-racist groups. This demonstrates how the activities of academics will bestrengthened by their joining with and perhaps even forming other groups.

Bourdieu has maintained his academic discussions. He attacked a group ofprominent academics, led by the Esprit journal and the sociologist Alain Touraine,who had chosen that moment to become apologists for Juppe by launching a petitionin favour of restructuring the social security system (Wolfreys, 2000). Bourdieuis also very actively engaged with those outside of academia. Wolfreys (2000)charts that he spoke to mass meetings of railway workers in Paris and launched apetition the following February calling for an Estates General of the Social Movement(which took place in November 1996). He put his name to petitions calling for legaland social recognition for homosexual couples and for civil disobedience in theface of racist legislation on immigration. Bourdieu has also supported protests byunemployed workers (addressing their occupation of the Ecole Normale Superieurein January 1998), backed opposition to the Multilateral Agreement on Investment,and published, in the form of an article entitled For a Left Left, an attack on theJospin government coalition of Socialists, Communists and Greens, elected in June1997. He is also well known for his condemnation of the fakes (“faux-semblants”) ofthe plural left, which had “disappointed its electorate, demobilized its activists andpushed the most exasperated to the far left”. Bourdieu has actively expressed hisconcern with the “neo-liberal troika of Blair–Jospin–Schroder”. Clearly Bourdieu hasnot only provided academics with a theorization on the role of academics, he couldalso be upheld as an exemplar of political action too. While I have concerns abouthis separation of theory and practice and his elevation of “intellectuals”, Bourdieu’swork should nonetheless be taken seriously.

The weight of the world and the role of accounting

One aspect of Bourdieu’s work which I would particularly like to draw attention tois his book The Weight of the World, (Bourdieu, 1999). It has been argued that thisbecame one of the defining books of the 1990s in France (Wolfreys, 2000). TheWeight of the World is a collaborative book which contains many interviews withpeople who live with inadequate material wealth and who typically have to struggleto make their voices heard in contemporary France (in run-down housing estates,on the dole, in part-time work, factory jobs, etc). Their stories are interspersed withshort essays by Bourdieu and his collaborators. The need and social desire for suchwork is perhaps evinced by the fact that despite its being 1000 pages long it soldnearly 100 000 copies in its original format before being published in a cheaperversion in 1998. Its impact was amplified by the fact that it was made into at leastsix plays, one of them staged over three days. Along with Bourdieu’s highly politicalinterventions since 1995 it has been a major factor in what is perhaps his single mostnotable achievement of recent years that of “relegitimizing a discourse of resistance”(Wolfreys, 2000).

This book must in some ways represent an excellent example of the kindof work Hammond and Sikka (1996) recommend when they call for more oralhistory in accounting. Such work in accounting would serve to highlight the misery

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caused by the neo-liberal economic agenda and accounting’s part in it. Thereare too many stories that totally pass critical accountants by. I will offer oneexample here. In January 2001, in Clydebank5 (near Glasgow), Scotland, 5000asbestos sufferers, and their families, many of them dying from their illnesses,were threatened with losing 95% of their compensation after the collapse ofChester Street Insurance Holdings Ltd, when the company called in the provisionalliquidators PricewaterhouseCoopers. Chester Street claimed that they could notmeet the rising number of claims from asbestos victims who had sued their formeremployers who were insured by the company. PricewaterhouseCoopers offered theasbestos victims just 5% of their awards arguing that if the deal was not accepted,the company would go into liquidation leading to even more uncertainty and delay(Guardian, 20th January 2001, p. 7).

Yet Chester Street had only recently sold their main profitable asset, IronTrades Insurance, ensuring that they had no profits to pay out to successfulasbestos claimants (The Scotsman, 19th January, 2001). Iron Trades was soldfor £175 million, which was, by all accounts, £50 million less than the marketvalue. The buyers, an Australian company QBE Ltd., held back £27 million of thepurchase price (The Scotsman, 6th February, 2001). This means that Chester Streetreceived £77million less than their own valuation of Iron Trade’s assets. The old IronTrades Employers Association Ltd was founded in 1898 by big employers includingshipbuilders on the Clyde, when the scale of a disaster like asbestos could hardlybe imagined (Sunday Herald, 4th February, 2001). It became a market leader inindustrial liability insurance and was responsible for between one-half and two-thirdsof UK asbestos litigation. It stopped taking on new employers’ liability businessin 1990 and the majority of its continuing business was sold to another companyin February 2000. But the pre-1990 employer liability business was transferredto Chester Street (Guardian, 20th January, 2001). As academics we should beconcerned with the role of the regulatory authority in all of this.

Chester Street paid a £440 000bonus to chief executive Robert Hardy monthsbefore it collapsed. His wages went from £70 000in 1998 to £668 000the followingyear (The Herald, 29th March, 2001). Chester Street is publicly acknowledging £200million of assets. According to analysis carried out by the Trades Union Congress(TUC) this sum would be enough to pay out up to 2500 mesothelioma victims. Atthis rate a maximum of four years worth of claims will exhaust the reserves. It isestimated that 5000 Scottish shipyard workers will die of asbestos-related illnessin the next 10 years because of their previous exposure to asbestos at work. Ifthe Chester Street scandal had been allowed to continue unchallenged thousandsof asbestos victims would have been denied justice. One ex-shipyard worker andasbestos victim, Colin MacLean, was in so much pain by the end, he was hardlyable to recognize his own family. His eldest son said “It is a terrible thing to saybut we were relieved when he finally died because we just wanted his suffering toend. . . . An animal enduring half that pain would not be allowed to suffer that way”(Scottish Socialist Voice, 26th January, 2001). Jimmy Dempsey, a member of theasbestos campaign group Clydeside Action said “The victims here haven’t just hadto go through the pain of their diseases. They have had to face the pain caused by asystem which has tried to deny them justice” (The Scotsman, 19th January, 2001).

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Jane Maitland, 61, whose husband William died of mesothelioma in 1998 said “I’ma nurse, so I’ve seen people die all my life, but I haven’t seen such a painful deathas my husband’s” (The Scotsman, 6 February, 2001). Such stories should be toldand could usefully be placed within the framework of a social audit or account ofthe companies concerned. Moreover, they would enable the real effects of some ofthe problems with insolvency legislation in the UK to be put in full view. It is wellacknowledged in the accounting literature that accounting impacts upon all areas ofour lives, yet there are too few “real life” examples of this.

After a battle by the victims and their families, it was announced in May 2001that the victims had won a crucial victory in their fight for compensation. ChancellorGordon Brown6 pledged to set up a fund enabling victims to claim for payments(Evening Times, 10th May, 2001). Victims who worked in the shipyard after 1972would have their claims met in full and those prior to that year would get 90% ofthe claim. The Policyholder’s Protection Board (PPB) would pay 90% of any of thepre-1972 claims and ensure that post-1972 claims will be topped up to 100%7.The Scottish secretary, Helen Liddell, said “This is fantastic news. . . . It is goodto have this sorted out and under the wire before the general election.” Arguablythe forthcoming UK General Election (7th June) helped the case of the asbestosworkers.

It was reported (Evening Times, p. 4, 10th May, 2001) that Margaret Lilly sheda quiet tear of celebration after the long fight for compensation. The Chancellor’sannouncement took on a poignant double significance for the 63-year old whosuffers from a rare asbestos-related disease. Her husband Owen (62) died inNovember 2000, from pulmonary asbestosis. Owen first came into contact withasbestos in the 1960s while working at the Turner Newall asbestos factory inDalmuir and then at the John Brown shipyard in Clydebank. In the end Owen couldnot walk 50 yards and died two days before his ruby wedding anniversary. Margaretis now living with the rare lung affliction pleural plaque after coming into contact withthe dust while washing his overalls. Margaret, who has waged the battle in his name,said “I am sad that Owen died before this fight with Chester Street really started buthe would have been glad today. . . . I would wash his overalls and the white dustwould be everywhere, but it never crossed our minds that the stuff was lethal. I amdelighted today that we have justice but we will fight to ensure 100% compensationfor everyone.”

The horrific linkages between asbestos and bankruptcy are not unique to the UK.Since 1988, 30 US companies have filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US toabandon their asbestos liabilities and continue trading. The latest is Federal Mogul,which acquired Turner and Newall in 1998. Turner and Newall were once the UK’slargest asbestos manufacturer and have also operated in South Africa. The roleof accounting and accountants in these processes alongside the stories of thoseaffected should prove to be a politically important and rewarding research arena forcritical accountants.

Thus far I have argued that many of the twentieth century’s great social theoristshave tended to be rather pessimistic about the possibilities for social change.I have suggested that in part this has happened because academics have tendedto concentrate on theory development while ignoring political practice. In short,

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academics are working in a rather unlovely vacuum. In an interview in 2000,Bourdieu said that he thought that in France in 1968 there was a hostility on thepart of workers towards intellectuals which doesn’t exist today and that intellectualslike Sartre and Foucault were separated from political action:

In France we have this tradition of workerism which is anti-intellectual. The unions are veryhostile to intellectuals and the intellectuals are very distant from workers. In 1968 it wasvery visible. Now. . . . I can speak with a CGT official as I am speaking to you. They arevery open. In a sense intellectuals like me did not exist 20 years ago. People like Sartreand Foucault were sympathetic to the movement, but they did not have much empiricalknowledge of workers. Interview with Kevin Ovenden, 2000

Thus I am setting out a case that in order to have less pessimism in academia itis essential for those critical accountants who wish to do something about socialinequality and injustice to participate in practice as well as the development oftheory. So is this happening in Scotland?

Critical Accounting In Scotland?

The new Scottish Parliament

Since most people will conflate Scotland with the rest of the United Kingdom,I should start out by briefly explaining the political differences between Scotlandand the rest of the United Kingdom. Aside from their different political histories, themost obvious divergence for contemporary political purposes is that Scotland hasrecently developed its own executive arm of government. The Scottish Parliament,elected on May 6, 1999, sat for the first time the following week on May 12. It tookup its full legislative powers on July 1, 1999. The Scottish Parliament is made upof 129 elected Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). One of the MSPs iselected by the Parliament to serve as the Presiding Officer. There are also twodeputy Presiding Officers. The party, or parties, with the majority of seats in theParliament forms the Scottish government, known as the Scottish Executive. Theexistence of this parliament makes a very marginal difference when it comes topromoting progressive social change. There are several recent examples of this.Perhaps of interest to academics is the fact that Scottish university students (unliketheir other British counterparts) do not have to pay tuition fees. I will draw upon thedispute over tuition fees in Scotland as an example of critical research in action.

During the run-up to the introduction of the new Scottish Parliament, I, andthree colleagues were involved in drawing up a Social Account of student financialhardship and stress (Cooper et al., 2000). While we were completing this SocialAccount there was a referendum in Scotland regarding devolution, the introductionof a new Scottish parliament and whether that parliament should have tax raisingpowers. There was an overwhelming vote in favour of a devolved Scottish parliamentand for it to have tax raising powers. But it was impossible at the time to know theexact effect this would have on the education debate. In the election campaign forthe Scottish executive, all political parties8 except New Labour said that if electedthey would abolish tuition fees. Particularly ardent opponents of tuition fees werethe Scottish Liberal Democratic Party and the Scottish Socialist Alliance.

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The result of the first election of MSPs was that no party had a large enoughmajority to take control. The two largest parties—New Labour and Scottish LiberalDemocrats—formed a coalition. This left the issue of tuition fees a key issue for thecoalition. New Labour was vehemently opposed to the abolition of the fees, whichhad only recently been introduced by the UK, New Labour government, whereasthe Liberal Democrats had, for many years, promised to increase income tax by1p to fund increased expenditure on education and would not willingly give up thisstance. The political compromise was that a commission of enquiry would be set upto investigate student financing. The committee, the “Cubie” committee was chargedwith the task of reporting back to the new parliament by the end of 1999.

Many individuals and groups made submissions to the enquiry. Our SocialAccount was one of the first submissions. Findings from the Social Account werequoted in the final Cubie Report. It was also used by the Scottish National Unionof Students and the Association of University Teachers (the main trade union foracademics in old universities) to put a case to the committee that not only shouldtuition fees be abolished but that the maintenance grant should be reintroduced. Theauthors of the account also attended public meetings and spoke to the media aboutour social account. Several newspapers used our social account almost verbatim.The Herald’s “Opinion” page (26th August, 1999, p. 20) applauded the setting upof the Cubie Committee because it felt that there are so many flaws in the currentstudent finance system, “more of which have been highlighted by the important,comprehensive research undertaken at and for Glasgow, Strathclyde and GlasgowCaledonian Universities, three of the four biggest in the country. The academicswho conducted it have exploded the myth of term-time work for reasons other thanpecuniary compulsion.”

Public meetings were held throughout Scotland during Autumn 1999 and Cubiereceived a mass of written evidence. The main message put across to AndrewCubie at these meetings and in the written evidence was that fees were extremelyunpopular in Scotland and should be abolished and that a decent maintenancegrant should be restored. The Cubie Committee of Enquiry under public pressurethen broadened the debate to bring the issue of the restoration of the maintenancegrant to the fore (alongside the abolition of tuition fees). This was very importantsince, unless the maintenance grant is restored, the reality is that student workingwill remain neither marginal nor transitory.

In December 1999 the Cubie Committee published its report. The Cubie reportstrongly criticized David Blunkett’s (New Labour Education Minister) system ofstudent financing as “ineffective, insufficient and indecipherable”. Throughout theCubie document there are not only repeated references to the impact of part-timeworking but also specific and general recommendations that address key problemsand concerns we have raised in our work. After the publication of the Cubie reportin December 1999, New Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders in Scotland debatedbehind closed doors how to deal with the report and maintain their coalition withoutlosing face. Their truly depressing proposals were published in February 1999. Thedetails of the proposals were bitterly disappointing. Scottish students now have tobegin repaying their loans when their income reaches £10 000, rather than the morerealistic Cubie recommendation of £25 000. But at least tuition fees were abolished

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in Scotland. Arguably, this may help in resisting the elitist introduction of differentialtuition fees.

Some saw the implementation of Cubie as a “sell out”. It is certainly the casethat New Labour members of the Scottish Parliament have tried not to implementother progressive recommendations. For example it made many twists and turnsbefore finally giving in to the recommendations of the Sutherland report on care ofthe elderly. Arguably, Scottish pensioners now have a slightly better deal than theirother British counterparts. Thus, the existence of the Scottish Parliament has, todate, had a very marginal impact on progressive social change.

The lesson for the academics who participated in the social account is that theiractivities will be much more effective if they join with other social movements, forexample, trade unions. The battle against tuition fees could not be won by a fewacademics. Outside of the directly political arena the most prominent type of criticalaccounting research to be carried out in Scotland is social and environmentalaccounting. In the next section I will discuss the work of the Centre for Socialand Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR) which currently resides atGlasgow University.

The Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research

CSEAR was established in 1991 as a networking institution which gathers anddisseminates information about the practice and theory of social and environmentalaccounting and reporting. CSEAR provides a mechanism for academics andpractitioners to make contact and support each other. It currently has over 300members in over 30 countries.

The Centre publishes a biannual journal, Social and Environmental Accounting(distributed free to members), maintains a specialist library of materials, provides adatabase of academics and practitioners around the world, undertakes research inits own right, organizes research schools and conferences and welcomes visitorsby arrangement. Social and environmental accounting is published twice a year anddistributed free to members of the Centre. It continues the work of Social AccountingMonitor as a major element of the social and environmental accounting network.It provides outlets for news, articles and reviews and keeps members up to datewith developments in the Centre and with relevant developments in the field and inpractice and academe around the world.

From an “outside” point of view, the Centre has produced thoughtful andcommitted PhD students (some of tomorrow’s academia) who have surely benefitedfrom the exposure to theoretical perspectives outside of the mainstream. Moreover,it has given social and environmental accounting a legitimacy and visibility that isalmost unimaginable 20 years ago. One of the knock-on effects of this is that it hasenabled academics to pursue alternative research agendas while maintaining theirstanding in a community that is not always sympathetic to critical perspectives.

One concern that I have with contemporary social and environmental account-ing is with its neo-pluralistic view of society. I am not the only academic with thisconcern: for example Everett and Neu (2000) believe that environmental account-ing’s harmonization with the discourse of the status quo has the (un)intended effect

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of convincing us that the “system is working”, that “progress is being made” andthis distracts us from asking difficult questions regarding the role of environmentalaccounting in perpetuating unequal and exploitative social relations. But, the linkingof social accounts to other forms of social action, for example collective bargaining,is, in my view, one way of strengthening the potential of social accounts. My sug-gestion is that social or environmental accounts could be produced by the workersof organizations, environmentalists, or groups with a special interest such as race,class or gender.

The production of social and environmental accounts by “others” might notprovoke much disagreement with social/environmental academics yet they stillseem to pursue an agenda which promotes the production of social andenvironmental accounts by individual organizations. These accounts fail to reflectthe social effects of organizations’ private economic transactions and thereforefail in their purpose of rendering organizations more socially or environmentallyaccountable (McNally, 1993). In short, from a broader social perspective socialand environmental accounts can never fulfil a social accountability function. Foracademics action has the double benefit of allowing us to hone our theoreticalunderstandings and gain the satisfaction of knowing that our work is of some socialbenefit. I would argue that one problem for CSEAR is that they are not collaboratingwith groups who are likely to benefit from their work.

Conclusion

The main thrust of the arguments in this paper are that academics should honetheir theoretical skills by engaging in the real world. This is aligned to a currentpreoccupation of mine that the social history of the twentieth century is fastdisappearing before our eyes. The lot of asbestos workers, those who toil on oil rigsin the North Sea, single parents struggling to raise their children on meagre statebenefits and a host of other “realities” of the twentieth century are too easily erased.The real implications of the introduction of almost unachievable return on investmentcriteria are rarely seen in the management accounting literature. Engaging withthese issues is an important starting point for the development of extant socialtheory. But for those who wish to see the implementation of more progressive socialchanges and enlightened social policy it is certainly productive to join forces withother social groups. It is certainly the case that academics throughout the world areunder pressure. But we still have the marvellous opportunity to mix daily with brightenquiring students and provide them with possibilities to develop in many ways. Letus also take our theoretical and research skills and really make a difference.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the participants of the European Accounting Association AnnualCongress, Athens, 2001 who commented on this paper and to Tony Tinker, DavidCooper, Jane Broadbent, Dean Neu and, last but not least, Julia Cooper-Perks.

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Notes

1. Much of the argument here follows Callinicos (1999).2. We should be immediately suspicious of any claims about universal rights (and indeed about

rationality). For example, the universal rights and happiness promised by the French and Americanrevolutions and by Greek philosophers tacitly excluded slaves, the poor and women!

3. Thanks to Jane Broadbent for our discussion which helped me to understand this point.4. Such questions, and numerous others raised by Bourdieu’s practical and theoretical interventions

(the role of structure and agency, the nature of class, consciousness and ideology, etc) are centralconcerns of Marxism, as is the emphasis on the practical activity of individuals which dominatesBourdieu’s work.

5. Clydebank is known as the asbestos capital of Europe. Asbestos now outstrips motor accidents asthe biggest premature killer in Britain (Sunday Herald, 2nd February, 2001).

6. Brown’s constituency is particularly affected by asbestos deaths.7. The official Policyholders’ Protection Scheme only meets your claim in full if the insurance is

compulsory (Guardian, p. 4, 23rd June, 2001).8. Even the Scottish Conservatives!

References

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