La Contre-Revolution Comptable. Ces Chiffres Qui (Nous) Gouvernent

Today, everyone talks about “government by numbers” or “government by indicators,” without attempting to precisely describe what these “numbers” really are. This book proposes to distinguish between numbers used as measurements (statistics, for example) and those used to count (such as in accounting). This distinction enables the author to suggest that the former are now losing ground to the latter, which are invading our organisations and policies. This historic narrative falls within the perspective opened by a groundbreaking work published by MIT Press (Cambridge, Massachusetts) in 1987, The Probabilistic Revolution, which was the cornerstone of statistical sociology in the world. “Accounting’s counterrevolution” formula was forged as a consequence of this research. In the French academic realm, Alain Desrosières, who left us in February 2013, was an undisputed leader in the sociology of quantification field, which enjoyed international recognition, and had for many years maintained ties with the international movement that recently expanded to Berlin. In his very clear writing style, Fabrice Bardet defends his theory that an accounting counterrevolution emerged in the 1970s, basing his premise on the history of the first twenty years in which the sociology journal, Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS), was published. Founded in 1976, the latter attests to a unique and misunderstood accounting invasion. The history of AOS has never been thoroughly researched in France, and only partially so in the English language. This concise and unique book thus provides a background review and current inventory of the numbers which govern us.