Asset pricing models, the labour theory of value and their implications for accounting

Abstract

The paper analyses the social components of two theories of central importance to accounting and finance. It shows that modern finance theory is unable to account for value and that although its canon and major assumptions successfully obfuscate real social relations, they do not provide an alternative explanation of those relations. The paper also argues that although Marx’s Capital uses accounting formulations to analyse capitalism, it does not provide a means of advancing accounting theory per se. In the spirit of further extending the analytical approach, Marx’s method is developed to include managerial and labour rents and the socialisation of capital, which when coupled with analytical techniques of modern finance and accounting, provides a basis for the critical analysis of capitalism. The paper shows that, by analysing the dialectical inter-relation of the means of production with the social relations of production, Marx’s method can be extended to provide an understanding of several important aspects capitalism