Accounting for the Social Relations of Feudalism

Abstract

It is becoming increasingly accepted that accounting concepts and practices can only be understood in their socio-historical context (e.g., Hopwood and Johnson, 1986). From this perspective, accounting scholars can both learn from historians, and may contribute to broader historical debates. The main purposes of the paper are: to make an accounting contribution to the debate between historians about the nature and development of feudalism in England and the transition to capitalism; to illustrate the general argument that accounting concepts and practices must be understood in the specific historical context in which they occur; and to suggest that a useful conceptual framework for understanding the emergence and development of feudal and capitalist accounting is Marx's concept of the ‘mode of production’.