The Illusion of Accounting
"Partial accounting is a lie. Complete accounting is impossible. If we never forget those things for a moment, then accounting is of some use..."
I proclaim Bourgeoisie accounting system a system of perfect imbeciles, as shall be clear by following:
The whole bourgeoisie life, thoughts, dealings, system, etc., are governed by a weird phenomenon. The questions of interest, dividends, rent, etc., upon capital. The rise and fall of the rotten temple of mammon or the den of gambling, as Engels calls the share-market.
Interest, according to bourgeoisie experts (Nobel prize winners on economy; old, senile and shameless economists men like Manmohan Singh, Indian PM--who declares Rs 32 (US Cents 70) per head per head as sufficient unto doing everything in life) and lovers of the capitalist system of economy, is the reward that the lender gets for offering his capital for investment in a particular project, and, thereby, foregoing its utility or need in some other project, place or fulfillment of want. Seen through the "eyes" of the capitalists and feudalists, their way of reasoning is well-established and, therefore, correct.
But Bolsheviks are the murderous enemies of this way of thinking.
Let the reader himself decide what he should support, interest or interestlessness. I shall only provide him some historical facts and logical analysis.
Historically, most of the societies are well-aware of the way usurers used to lend money to people on arbitrary rates of interest. Millions upon millions of borrowers were fleeced in the process, and their families were reduced to wretchedness. If social progress is in the interest of all of us, the phenomenon of interest-seeking, usury, etc., has impeded the process through centuries so far. For the role of interest in the wretchedness of the modern world, read "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" by Lenin.
On the other side of the argument are the capitalists, who say that usury and Calvinism brought capital into the hands of some people, which they utilized for establishing industries, brining about rapid (social) development.
That was as far the historical aspect of "interest" is concerned; let us now go to the philosophical or logical aspect of it.
As usual there are two ways of looking at the things: (i) The rational, and (ii) The shortsighted or nonsensical.
As specimen of one way of thinking, we can easily recall the story that we used to learn in our childhood.
An old man was planting the sapling of a walnut-tree when a passer-by saw him busy in the enterprise.
"How old are you?" asked the passer-by. "I'm eighty-four years." replied the old man. "When will the sapling you are planting bring its first fruit and when will it be at its highest yield?" "After ten years or so it shall bring the first crop, after fifty years it will be at its apex and will bring its maximum annual yield for about a century thereafter." "Will you be alive till then?" "Most probably not even till its first yield comes." "Then why do you set yourself to work something that shall fetch you no fruit in your life?" "I am planting this sapling for the future generations. Our forefathers worked and we are given the fruits of their working. It is our responsibility, as long as we are alive, to work for the future generations too."
Here is another way of thinking.
Interest is a necessary and excellent thing. Therefore lend your hundred
bugs at (say) ten percent per annum, and at the end of one year you shall
have one hundred ten bugs; at the end of two years it shall amount to one
hundred twenty-one bugs; and so on. Now if this equation is natural and
correct on one side, it should be so in reverse too. That is, one hundred
twenty-one bugs after two years should be worth just a hundred bugs
presently. Thus you have the concept of present worth for future benefits.
>From here you directly land up in the life of a project, and what our
experts come to conclude is that the life of a project is twenty-five years,
for the present worth of future benefits (however huge in amount they may
be) that a project shall yield after twenty-five years of its life is
negligible. Thus the plot of land, the house, the canal, the orchard, the
road, and so forth, will all be worthless after a mere twenty-five years
from today, according to this system of reasoning. If you extend this
philosophy further, you may very well be enlightened to declare that all the
children born today will be useless after twenty-five years; the Taj Mahal,
the Oxford University, and so forth, which were brought into existence
hundreds of years ago, are of no value at all; Galileo, Newton, Leibniz,
Maxwell, Neil Bohr, Madame Curie, etc., are absolutely worthless to us now.
Go ahead and you attain the wisdom that the sun, the moon, the stars, the
forests, the rivers, everything will be a negligible petty thing after just
three decades from today.
What counts is the present worth of the wealth you have managed to take away from the public by whatever legal and illegal means. If you have capital, you are a wise man; otherwise you are an idiot.
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