The Origins of Double-Entry Bookkeeping
Kürşat Haldun AkalınÇift Taraflı Defter Tutmanın Zihniyet Kökenleri
Kürşat Haldun AkalınThough the birth of accounting coincides with capitalism, the moral foundations of accounting thinking can be traced back to theological debates raised during the Reformation. The purpose of this article is to explicate how the two religions, Judaism and Christianity that divided into Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, have successively revealed the nature of accounting to moralize people’s day-today conduct. Max Weber and Werner Sombart maintained that accounting uses Puritan or Jewish beliefs in day-to-day activities and faith management. But Weber’s argument that economic rationality needs a rational and systematic ordering of assets and liabilities, as in the capital account, is not uniform and varies across cultures, despite the near universal reach of capitalism. In, particularly, the medieval Catholic world, ranging from Lucca Pacioli on one hand to merchants on the other, the act of writing on the bottom of books of accounts in the name of God to whom they were addressed, was a widely observed practice. For this reason Sombart and others ruminating on accounting and capitalism have stressed that they had been resting upon religion as a common base since the Middle Ages. According to Sombart, Judaism has suggested that believers should practice metaphoric books of accounts, wherein faith in God is recorded as for credit and should be balanced through actual conduct, reflecting mankind’s indebtedness to the Lord. In rabbinic theologies, faith offered by God should lead the believer to conduct him/herself righteously so that his/her behavior is consistently aligned with God’s expectations. Thus Sombart argued that, effectively, people are rewarded for duties performed and punished for duties neglected, the rewards and punishments being received partly in this world and partly in the next world. Also puritan believers secretly record their lives on a daily basis, ready for Judgment Day. A twofold relationship to God is revealed through the Old and New Testaments of accounts. Firstly, in this life, the believer is rewarded when commanded duties are completed; the individual is in peace and acknowledged by other community members as a righteous person. God’s rewards are worldly power in the form of success, profit, and conquest. Conversely, if duties are not performed, man is punished on Earth through vocal and public revelation of guilty conduct. God’s punishments are losses, scarcity, unfulfilled needs, indigence, occupancy, earthquakes, and extreme weather events. In addition to Puritan and Jewish peoples, on Judgment Day, the individual encounters God and the regularity of the accounts is verified by the Lord. If accounts are not representative of actual conduct in life, the self will be punished in the next life. If his/her accounts are fair, reward becomes possible but is enabled only if the accounts are balanced. Balance or imbalance is appraised on the basis of comparing biographical accounts, commandments, and performance. In case of imbalance, the believer may sincerely repent him/herself and be rewarded for acknowledging poor conduct and being fair subsequently. The rabbinic literature insists on the privacy of such books and the prohibition of any intrusion between God and the believer. The Puritan and Judaist outlook that by faith the believer must fulfill duties ordered by the Lord and accounts for them as debit. Fulfilled duties balance commandments from faith. Balanced books are rewarded by God, rewards being a net result and therefore accounted for by credit. Unfulfilled duties being missing, faith has no counterpart. A dual mechanism is observed. First, unfulfilled duties are recorded as an offense to God diminishing value to Him, viz. as negative debit (wicked conduct) and result in retributions from God. Retributions are expected in this life, for the offender to have a chance to rebalance the account. If missing duties are not dealt with at all, when the Jew dies, God punishes him/her in the next life. Especially, Judaism reveals four issues relevant to contemporary accounting practice. First, the notion of balance between commandments revealed by God through laws and actual conduct, stresses double-entry thinking. Everything, every item, every activity, every amount of money has a counterpart, nothing existing per se. This leads to the second issue regarding evaluation models. It is obvious that faithfulness and divine commandments cannot be known, measured, or evaluated. Therefore, and consistent with rabbinic literature, only the believer can faithfully identify what the Lord expects from them, no intermediary being legitimate to articulate any doctrine of God’s will. Thirdly, as individual accounts are not subjected to any human control, God will exert His on Judgment Day. The two books will be examined by God, who will either reward the righteous or punish the wicked. Faithfulness can be found in the fairness of accounts and in the balance of commandments ordered by God and those actually honored. In Christian theologies, it is commonplace to consider God revealed to the world through three features: the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Roman Catholic theologies agree that only the clergy are habilitated to approach God and can thus act as conduits between Him and believers; the first intermediary being Jesus, sent to clean mankind’s sins. Effectively, people are reckoned by their acts, evil leading to Hell, good work to Paradise, and repentance for poor conduct to Purgatory before God decides to send the guilty to Hell or Paradise. So Roman Catholicism differs from Judaism and Puritanism, because the Puritan or Judaist believer is called for directing capabilities and skills at the maximization of capitalistic profit.