After writing those three new Entries for Section One of Work-Standard Accounting Practices, I decided to take a break and start reading through the academic literature I found while researching for both the Second Edition and my Bookkeeping Certificate coursework. The former was to further flesh out how, in the decades between the Death of Bretton Woods, the 9/11 attacks and the Great Recession, the Accounting Profession underwent significant reforms on how it conducted itself. The latter is to delve into materials that is normally not covered in most coursework.

For those who do not know or are interested in what else I dug up, the Death of Bretton Woods did not just set the precedent for the rise of Fiat Currency and the rise of Financial Technologies (Fintech). It also created the need for Liberal Capitalists throughout the Empire of Liberty to better monitor and track the flow of Kapital and Schuld across international borders. The whole infrastructure, which was helped by two World Wars and the Cold War, required a shared international accounting methodology for Double-Entry Account Bookkeeping.

The 1990s saw the Accounting Profession beginning to recount and recall its centuries-old history. The “Roaring Nineties,” as it was often called, led to a lot of academic literature validating long-standing assumptions made by Pan-Germanic Socialism a century prior. That Double-Entry Account Bookkeeping, the Fractional-Reserve Banking System, and the Market/Mixed Economy represented concepts and ideas which were imposed on the German-speaking world by Ancient Rome and more recently by the Liberal Capitalists. That the German-speaking world must develop its own versions of the National Economy, Financial Regime, and Accounting Standards and implement them throughout the Western world.

These ideas would later be recontextualized in the People’s Republic of China among “Maoist Accountants” and “Dengist Accountants,” sparking a decades-long debate on whether Mainland China should adopt Double-Entry Account Bookkeeping or devise its own methods. The Maoist Accountants believed that the China should pursue its own version applicable to the Command Economy. The Dengist Accountants, in keeping with the later “Reform and Opening Up,” insisted on adopting Double-Entry Account Bookkeeping. The result of these debates led to the creation of a distinct “Balance Sheet” that functioned differently from the one used by Liberal Capitalist Accountants.

As a matter of a fact, yes, Double-Entry Account Bookkeeping has its original antecedents in Ancient Rome and was later “reintroduced” to the German-speaking world and broader Western world during the Renaissance. Everything associated with it, including the “Capitalism” in Liberal Capitalism, was further refined throughout the Enlightenment, giving rise to our modern understandings of economic life under Neoliberalism by the 20th century. The beginning of the 21st century, the 2000s, were a pivotal decade for the Accounting Profession. Some reforms were made to its methodological practices in response to the events surrounding 9/11 and the Great Recession.

All of these topics and more can now be accessed and downloaded from Digital Library V. The research articles in question are as follows:

• Accounting in Its Age of Stagnation (Read: “the Enlightenment”)
• Historical Evolution of the Balance Sheet in the People’s Republic of China
• Origin of the Trial Balance
• Past, Present and Future of Accounting History
• Roman Literal Contract and Double-Entry Bookkeeping
• The Evolution of the Journal Entry
• The Roaring Nineties: Accounting History Comes of Age

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Accounting, ARPLAN, China, Economic History, Economics, Finance, Pan-Germanic Socialism, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Socialist Finance, Third Place, Work-Standard, Work-Standard Accounting Practices