The Accounting Historians Journal Vol. 8, No. 2 Fall 1981
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI THE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF ACCOUNTS-THE
PHILOSOPHY OF DR SCOTT Abstract: DR Scott was an economist,
historian, philosopher, and accountant. Most of all he was a
scholar who merged some of the most up-to-date ideas of the
1920s into his book The Cultural Significance of Accounts. He
concluded that our culture was in a time of relative turmoil
because the market was no longer the primary controlling force
within our institutions. Accounting as the vehicle of the
scientific method would replace the market as the synthesis of
institutions which make up our culture. Evidence suggests that
the outcome foretold by DR Scott in 1931—that American society
would witness the use of Accounting as a principal means of
political and economic control—seems to have come to pass in the
contemporary "Bottom-Line" culture of the 1970s.1 The purpose of
this article is to explain how DR Scotta reached the conclusion
quoted above. DR Scott can fairly