
The vanished grandeur of accounting (2014) - Tomte
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/06/07/the-vanished-grandeur-accounting/3zcbRBoPDNIryWyNYNMvbO/story.html
======
nateburke
There are several saliloquies in the 21st century unfinished novel "The Pale
King" by David Foster Wallace that do the accounting profession and its
requisite temperament plenty of Justice. E.g., from a character working for
the IRS:

“I learned that the world of men as it exists today is a bureaucracy. This is
an obvious truth, of course, though it is also one the ignorance of which
causes great suffering.

“But moreover, I discovered, in the only way that a man ever really learns
anything important, the real skill that is required to succeed in a
bureaucracy. I mean really succeed: do good, make a difference, serve. I
discovered the key. This key is not efficiency, or probity, or insight, or
wisdom. It is not political cunning, interpersonal skills, raw IQ, loyalty,
vision, or any of the qualities that the bureaucratic world calls virtues, and
tests for. The key is a certain capacity that underlies all these qualities,
rather the way that an ability to breathe and pump blood underlies all thought
and action.

“The underlying bureaucratic key is the ability to deal with boredom. To
function effectively in an environment that precludes everything vital and
human. To breathe, so to speak, without air.

“The key is the ability, whether innate or conditioned, to find the other side
of the rote, the picayune, the meaningless, the repetitive, the pointlessly
complex. To be, in a word, unborable.

“It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is
literally nothing you cannot accomplish.”

~~~
Waterluvian
The line on immunity to boredom resonates with me. However I think boredom is
a very healthy motivator.

There's a balance to strike. You want to be able to be bored (when I worked at
a government elections office for 8 months). But you also want to have the
drive to not be bored anymore (when I automated away my job and got in a lot
of trouble).

~~~
vinceguidry
Something changed when information technology became ubiquitous. In the world
of the aforementioned DFW, successful automation requires a lot more than just
getting bored enough to build something, it required _more bureaucracy_. More
bored humans doing boring things.

Computers truly are magic.

~~~
mbrock
And yet I still think that computer programming, and solving computer
problems, requires a high tolerance for boring drudgery...

Imagine teaching coding skills to an impatient friend. “Okay, today we’re
going to learn about Node package management and resolving merge conflicts!”

~~~
vinceguidry
I've done it, the only thing that really works is giving them an big, stupid
goal like making a video game or a crypto-currency or whatever and letting
them fail over and over again. Once you see them getting a little frustrated
give them a little direction but otherwise leave them alone.

------
remote_phone
My wife is a Chief Accounting Officer and she loves accounting. She lives and
breathes it. She loves puzzling over accounting issues and over the years,
I’ve seen her debug spreadsheets the way I debug code. In another life she
would have been a tremendous programmer. Even though she is the highest
accounting person in her company, she still has her nose in the books, always
getting into fights against the auditors over esoteric FASB edicts (and always
winning).

As a programmer, I love watching her work because it’s so similar to
programming on a higher level.

~~~
Nerada
Might be a long shot, but does she know of any blogs/articles/videos/books
that get into the really dry detail of forensic accounting? I'd love to follow
along a case study of people tracking down where missing money has gone, even
if not for nefarious purposes and just simply misallocated, but I'm having a
hard time finding anything.

I have a weird, romantic, fascination with what others might find dreadfully
boring bean-counting...

------
Animats
Traditionally, shipping was a high-risk, high-return business. If the ship
came in, the owners made lots of money. If it didn't... The hero was the bold
captain.

The Dutch figured out how to make low-margin businesses work at scale. They
built big, slow, stable ships with large cargo capacity to ship routine cargo.
They were derided as "herring-tamers", because pickled herring was a
profitable business. These low-margin businesses required cost control, or the
whole operation could deliver the goods and still lose money. Thus the
importance of accounting.

~~~
contingencies
Interesting that they seem to have completely lost the sector to the Belgians
(Antwerp), greater China (COSCO, OOCL, Evergreen, Yang Ming, PIL, Wan Hai),
the Danes (Maersk), French (CMA CGM), Germans (Hapag-Lloyd, Hamburg Süd),
Japanese (Nippon Yusen, Mitsui, K Line), Koreans (Hyundai) and the Swiss
(MSC). Perhaps they went wrong on their accounting at some point.

~~~
1123581321
It is. I went looking for information and found several of the passages at
this link persuasive towards the view that the reasons for decline were
complex, but uncompetitive shipping played a role:
[https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004271319/B9789004271...](https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004271319/B9789004271319-s015.xml)

~~~
contingencies
Interesting looking article, thanks for sharing. I will definitely read it
carefully when I get a chance.

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anovikov
Interesting! In the Soviet culture, accountants were seen just that way: as
disgustingly boring losers. In part they indeed been, as not being workers (so
not belonging to the 'hegemonic class' of Communist society according to
Marxism, even working on the same factory), they were paid less, had a harder
time joining the Party (and thus enjoy access to deficit consumer goods) etc.

Today, it is totally opposite. In provincial Russia today, only two
professions that are guaranteed to make person a living are programmer
(because these can work for Western customers so earn a lot) and an accountant
(because these need to cook the books and be really inventive at that, as
without it, any business will go bust, system works like that). They are just
as respected as programmers are. And the job itself isn't as boring as it used
to be because it require a lot of trickery because you usually need to be able
to scam several parties at once, not just the government, but also the formal
owners.

~~~
Havoc
Haha that is a quirk specific to Russia and similar countries. I've certainly
never had to cook anything

------
IkmoIkmo
Hah, throughout the article I kept thinking: this guy probably just read Jacob
Solls book, it's basically a brief summary. Of course, he ends up signing the
article haha.

I enjoyed his perspective but I can't help but wonder what his ultimate point
is. For everyone to appreciate accounting in our culture and art? If anything
I feel we have a healthy appreciation of accounting and auditing where it
matters; in our institutional & governance frameworks. We have audits of
auditors, schools, financial institutions, governments, agriculture and
foodstuffs etc etc. It's far from perfect but the 1600s could only dream of
the role and importance of accounting and auditing today, regardless of the
cultural position.

~~~
roymurdock
Recognition of how certain roles are becoming extremely specialized, as Adam
smith first set out in his division of labor thesis in the wealth of nations
as a way to increase productivity, succinctly critiqued by Robert Heinlein:
“specialization is for insects”

Accountants used to be merchants, businessmen, politicians, lenders,
financiers, and insurers all rolled into one. Now they are (at entry level, or
working for the state at least) seen as excel jockeys and bean counters
enforcing some arcane business/legal code that nobody else wants to touch

And as much as I hate to bring in taleb, most accountants/auditors have no
skin in the game, and therefore what they do is intriscally boring. If they
stood to lose a pound of flesh as in the merchant of Venice when the
businesses they oversee go bankrupt, perhaps they would be written about in
Shakespearean terms today

~~~
Havoc
>most accountants/auditors have no skin in the game

Bit of an ironic comment given that almost all accounting/auditing firms are
partnerships. The participants arguably have more skin in the game than any
other corporate entity of comparable complexity.

~~~
Tomte
Since those big firms are consulting firms, they have less a skin in the game,
and more in the meta-game.

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Rjevski
> You're using a browser set to private or incognito mode. To continue reading
> articles in this mode, please log in to your Globe account.

[http://archive.is/AvaqZ](http://archive.is/AvaqZ)

~~~
Ginguin
I hit the same thing. Nuke Anything (a pretty awesome Firefox extension) let
me kill the popover and access the article.

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JoeDaDude
Translation error? I was able to locate an image of a Jan Provost painting
called "Death and the Miser" [1] but none called "Death and the Merchant".

[1] [https://www.wikiart.org/en/jan-provoost/death-and-the-
miser](https://www.wikiart.org/en/jan-provoost/death-and-the-miser)

Having relatives that are accountants, I am interested in seeing more of the
Dutch and English paintings of accountants described, but not named, in the
article. If anyone knows any, please post.

~~~
jabbernotty
From the description I'm sure that is the correct painting. The title in the
original language is "De Gierigaard en de Dood". A simple modern translation
would be "The Greedy Man and Death", there is no reason to translate it as
"merchant". Apparently there is a book devoted to the subject of accountants
in the arts from 1400 to 1900: "Art & Accounting" by Basil S. Yamey.

Edit: This article contains a list of such paintings, and there is a link to
the PDF which contains images.
[https://www.accountant.nl/magazines/accountant-2016-q2/boekh...](https://www.accountant.nl/magazines/accountant-2016-q2/boekhouden-
in-de-kunst/)

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lifeisstillgood
That's crazy - I was working on a chapter of my book and used not only that
very portrait but was making much the same point - accountancy was a
transformative control technology - but much less granular than software
today.

I need to publish ... :-)

~~~
contingencies
You may enjoy this quote from
[http://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup](http://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup)
...

 _The current wave of reducing everything to a combination of 'data &
algorithm' and tackling every problem with more data and better algorithms is
the logical end-point of the control revolution that started in the 19th
century._ \- Ashwin Parameswaran (2012)

~~~
lifeisstillgood
thank you:-)

