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Accounting for the General Intellect: Immaterial labour and the social factory

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  • Spence, Crawford
  • Carter, David

Abstract

With the decline of the fordist production model immaterial labour is increasingly recognised as the principal source of value in the contemporary economy. Yet this creates a crisis of measurement which capital has struggled to respond to. This paper analyses the attempts of various accounting technologies to respond to the emergence of immaterial labour through the lens of autonomist Marxism. Management and financial accounting are represented as impoverished attempts to measure the immaterial. The shortcomings of these traditional accounting technologies have been recognised by promoters of intellectual capital accounting, which attempts to account for the immaterial. From an autonomist Marxist perspective, intellectual capital accounting is perceived as an unsettling attempt to colonise ‘biens communs’ and the General Intellect. However, in the midst of these attempts to rationalise hitherto untapped areas of subjectivity and social life we find cause to cautiously celebrate immaterial labour whose complexity tends to elude measurement, thereby offering hope for socialisations which exceed capitalist control.

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  • Spence, Crawford & Carter, David, 2011. "Accounting for the General Intellect: Immaterial labour and the social factory," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 304-315.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:22:y:2011:i:3:p:304-315
    DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2010.12.007
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    2. Komori, Naoko, 2012. "Visualizing the negative space: Making feminine accounting practices visible by reference to Japanese women's household accounting practices," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 451-467.
    3. Nappert, Pier-Luc & Plante, Maude, 2023. "The assetization of baseball players: Instrumentalizing promise with signing bonuses and human capital contracts," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    4. Dillard, Jesse & Vinnari, Eija, 2017. "A case study of critique: Critical perspectives on critical accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 88-109.
    5. Toms, Steven & Shepherd, Alice, 2017. "Accounting and social conflict: Profit and regulated working time in the British Industrial Revolution," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 57-75.
    6. Roslender, Robin & Marks, Abigail & Stevenson, Joanna, 2015. "Damned if you do, damned if you don’t: Conflicting perspectives on the virtues of accounting for people," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 43-55.
    7. Cooper, Christine, 2015. "Accounting for the fictitious: A Marxist contribution to understanding accounting's roles in the financial crisis," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 63-82.
    8. Yu, Ai & Garcia-Lorenzo, Lucia & Kourti, Isidora, 2017. "The role of Intellectual Capital Reporting (ICR) in organisational transformation: A discursive practice perspective," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 48-62.
    9. Mäkelä, Hannele, 2013. "On the ideological role of employee reporting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 360-378.
    10. Corinne Ollier Bessieux & Emmanuelle Negre & Marie-Anne Verdier, 2022. "Moving from Accounting for People to Accounting with People: A Critical Analysis of the Literature and Avenues for Research," Post-Print hal-03889478, HAL.

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