AGAINST POSTMODERNISM: CLASS ORIENTED QUESTIONS FOR CRITICAL ACCOUNTING

Abstract This paper is concerned with critical accounting theory and critical accounting researchers. The purpose of the paper is to promote Marxist class-based theoretical accounting research by arguing that a Marxist perspective would give a voice to working-class people in the critical accounting literature and provide a theory of praxis which would make action more effective. The paper contends that postmodern theoretical perspectives and due to their historic and theoretical foundations, cannot take a class perspective and are cynical and disillusioned about the possibility of beneficial social change. The paper begins by consideirng how the introduction of profit-related pay in UK universities might be understood by postmodern theory and then by Marxist theory. It then provides a context for the development of social theory, including postmodernism and Marxism since World War II, paying particular attention to accounting academics.