Accounting and the Third Enclosure Movement

This paper is concerned with the march of global capitalism and how it is spreading across the globe touching every aspect of the lives of every human being on the planet.  We draw upon and develop the literature on enclosure movements to demonstrate how the creation of accounting products (standards, rules, principles and so on) has been enclosed within the edifice of the IASB.   Enclosure has always been articulated to the development and spread of capitalism and private property rights. We argue that the institutional production of international accounting standards represents a third enclosure movement.  This third movement is different from the other two in that it concerns the enclosure not only of the rules and principles of accounting and accounting knowledge (akin to the second enclosure movement), but of the enclosure of the body which is endowed with the right to be the legal monopoly producer of international accounting principles and rules.   We turn to a discussion of enclosure movements first to set the context for our argumentation.