A Marxist accounting history of the British industrial revolution: a review of evidence and suggestions for research

An important debate neglected by accounting historians concerns the existence, origins and significance of the British Industrial Revolution (BIR). A key problem is explaining why Britain was such a technologically creative society. Part one uses accounting ideas to explain Marx's theory that industrial capitalism first appeared in Britain and was revolutionary because it took control of production to maximise the rate-of-return on capital employed. Part two shows that accumulating evidence of the use of modern management accounting by leading firms during the BIR supports Marx's view that it was a capitalist revolution in his sense. Part three argues that the accounting history of Boulton and Watt supports the hypothesis that the capitalist mentality and accounts drove revolutions in the technical and social relations of production during the BIR. Part four re-examines other well-known key sites for the study of accounting history and argues that these cases support the hypothesis that the primary cause of variations in accounting during the BIR was variations in the social relations of production. The paper makes suggestions for further research and concludes that, by thoroughly testing Marx's theory, accounting historians can make an important contribution to a major historical debate.