The oldest profession

The purpose of this paper is to draw attention towards how religious beliefs are linked to today's accounting principles and legitimating exploitation.

The poem is a critical thought.

Religious concepts have been widely used to justify various historical social injustices. Four basic accounting principles; matching, accrual, going concern and reporting cycle perfectly correspond with life cycles, the acts and rewards of such lives, and “balancing” the pains and gains of individuals and society. These concepts, which have now become the foundation of accounting, were in existence millennia ago.

Accounting is broader than has been widely perceived. Accounting researchers should pay more attention to how accounting helped sustain social injustices.

This poem provokes thoughts on the origin of basic accounting principles and their historical roles in sustaining social injustices.