AAAJ
7,1
6 The Anderson Schools of Management, The University of New Mexico,
Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal, Vol. 7
No. 1, 1994, pp. 6-30. © MCB
University Press, 0951-3574
Corporate Accountability and
Rorty’s Utopian Liberalism
Tom Mouck
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
The accounting literature on corporate accountability has long been marked
by disagreements between “left-wing” and “right-wing” theorists. More
recently, however, a debate has been developing between “left-wing” theorists
and so-called “middle-of-the-road” theorists (Gray, 1989; Gray et al. 1988, 1991;
Parker, 1986, 1991; Puxty, 1986, 1991; Tinker et al., 1991). A key issue in the
debate is that there is no coherent and stable theoretical perspective for a
middle-of-the-road theory of corporate accountability. As Tinker et al. (1991)
have pointed out, middle-ground theorizing tends to shift with the prevailing
political winds. This problem has been explicitly recognized by Gray, who is
perhaps the most outspoken advocate of a middle-of-the-road approach to
corporate accountability issues:
What distinguishes the accounting literature of the “New Right” and the “Radicals” from the
bulk of accounting research and theorizing is that each possesses some coherent vision of
society as it is and, to varying degrees, as it can be and should be (1989, p. 53).
This raises an important question:
If one seeks intellectual coherence does one have any choice other than the extremes of right
and left? (Gray, 1989, p. 54).
Gray suggests:
The importance of vision cannot be overexaggerated (1989, p. 55).
One way of trying to sort this out would be to examine different visions of the way society is
constructed and organized and the different possibilities of how the species might organize
its societies (1989, p. 54).
In the spirit of Gray’s suggestion, this article can be seen as an examination of
an alternative vision of society and an exploration of the potential role of
corporate accountability in that vision. The alternative vision is provided by
Rorty, one of our most influential contemporary philosophers. In his recent
book, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, Rorty provides an overview of a
“Utopian liberal society” which rejects all forms of religious, scientific or
philosophical foundationalism. His vision of utopian liberalism should prove
interesting to accounting theorists because of its lack of conformity to
accustomed theoretical battle-lines. Most “radical” accounting theorists may
find many points of agreement with Rorty’s social constructionist
philosophical views. “Middle-of-the-road” accounting theorists, on the other
hand, would surely agree with his suggestion “that contemporary liberal Corporate
society already contains the institutions for its own improvement…” (Rorty, Accountability
1989, p. 63). In any case, Rorty’s vision of utopian liberalism is neither right-
wing nor radical left-wing.
The intellectual coherence of Rorty’s vision, however, is at a fairly high level
of philosophical and literary abstraction. It leaves plenty of opportunity for
extending the implications to more concrete social, economic, and political 7
issues. The elaboration of such an extension to the issue of corporate
accountability is the primary task of this article. I begin with an overview of
enlightenment liberalism, its transformation into economic liberalism, and the
related “New Right” (i.e. the Rochester School’s) theory of corporate
accountability. Since Rorty is claiming the same political tradition of
liberalism, it is important to have a benchmark for gauging the distance of
Rorty’s utopian liberalism from economic liberalism.

The Enlightenment, Economic Liberalism and the Rochester

School’s Theory of Corporate Accountability
The enlightenment philosophers championed the use of human reason in
discovering the rationality of a “natural order”. They disdained reliance on
myth, superstition and unscientific theological doctrine as guides to human
affairs. Sir Isaac Newton was presumed to have provided the supreme example
of the power of human rationality and scientific observation. He had
discovered, it seemed, the general laws of the physical universe and those laws
had been stated with precise logical clarity. The primary challenge for the
enlightenment philosophers was to apply scientific rationality to inquiry in the
social and political spheres.
Men were objects in nature no less than trees and stones; their interaction could be studied
as that of atoms or plants. Once the laws governing human behaviour were discovered and
incorporated in a science of rational sociology, analogous to physics or zoology, men’s real
wishes could be investigated and brought to light, and satisfied by the most efficient means
compatible with the nature of the physical and mental facts. Nature was a cosmos: in it there
could be no disharmonies; and since such questions as, what to do, how to live, what would
make men just or rational or happy, were all factual questions, the true answer to any one of
them could not be incompatible with true answers to any of the others (Berlin, 1956, p. 27).
In applying enlightenment ideals to the social and political spheres, John Locke
was arguably the most influential of the founders of political liberalism. As
John Dewey has noted:
The outstanding points of Locke’s version of liberalism are that governments are instituted
to protect the rights that belong to individuals prior to political organization of social
relations (1963a, p. 4).
Locke’s individualism can appropriately be described as ontological
individualism in that he believed literally that human ideas and thoughts were
individually grounded in immediate sense impressions without social
intermediation. Thus, as Dewey points out:
AAAJ Reason was…made an inherent endowment of the individual, expressed in men’s moral
relations to one another, but not sustained and developed because of these relations
7,1 (1963a, p. 5).
Since individuals were presumed to exist independently of social organization,
Locke conceived of liberty as freedom for individual action and rights as
natural rights of individuals. The specific natural right that Locke is best
8 known for, and the one that had the most relevance for the transformation of
political liberalism into economic liberalism, was the individual’s right to
property, a right that originates when an individual mixes his or her labour
with some natural resource that had not been previously appropriated.

Economic Liberalism
The conception of the relationship between labour and property gave rise to
the labour theory of value, which was a cornerstone of classical economic
theory. Classical economic theory, especially as developed by Adam Smith,
transformed liberalism from a primarily political conception of individual
liberty to an economic conception. Smith held that the economic activity of
individuals is the chief source of social welfare and that social progress is best
achieved by removing political constraints from economic activity.
Ontological individualism was given a new twist in the late eighteenth
century by the development of utilitarianism by Jeremy Bentham. Bentham’s
utilitarianism rested on the assumption that “nature has placed mankind
under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure” (Bentham,
1973, p. 17). He defined utility as “that property in any object, whereby it tends
to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good or happiness” (p. 18). He
formulated the principle of utility which advocates the greatest happiness of
the greatest number as the highest possible goal. The individual is the
reference point for determining utility, and the common good is the total of the
utility of individuals.
The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered
as constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is, what? – the
sum of the interests of the several members who compose it (Bentham, 1973, p. 18).
Bentham’s utilitarianism had a profound impact on economic thought. The
marginalist revolution in economics in the 1870s is widely held to be the
dividing line between classical and neoclassical economics. And the theory of
utility, most elaborately developed by William Stanley Jevons, was a focal
point of the new approach to economic analysis. In the introductory chapter of
his 1871 book, The Theory of Political Economy, Jevons points out that:
The theory which follows is entirely based on a calculus of pleasure and pain; and the object
of economics is to maximize happiness by purchasing pleasure, as it were, at the lowest cost
of pain (p. 91).
He formulated the “law” of diminishing marginal utility in terms of a calculus
of pleasure and pain, and he developed the criteria for maximizing utility and
for consumer equilibrium. Thus, the rational utilitarian portrait of economic
man became solidly embedded as a cornerstone of neoclassical economic Corporate
theory. Ontological individualism was perpetuated from classical to Accountability
neoclassical economic theory.
In the twentieth century, as the economic influence of institutions (especially
corporations) became more pervasive, the economists’ commitment to
individualism and liberalism was facilitated by treating social institutions as
reflections of the wishes of individuals, as mere epiphenomena. This ongoing 9
predisposition of most economists in favour of a liberal view of individualism
and its expression in their theorizing about economics is captured very
succinctly in the following quote from economist Daniel Hausman (1984):
Since Adam Smith, a particular vision of economics has dominated economic theorizing. One
conceives of an economy as made up of a number of separate agents – individuals or
households or firms – whose only interactions with one another are voluntary exchanges of
goods and services. Everybody knows that people have all sorts of other interactions with
one another, but the economist assumes, as a first approximation, that these other
connections among agents can be ignored. Economic agents are conceived of as well-
informed, rational and self-interested maximizers…
Given these assumptions, economists since Adam Smith have believed that voluntary
exchange among such agents would result in a systematic and efficient organization of
economic life with an outcome that would be beneficial to the agents involved. In Smith’s
view and in the view of most economists since, such a market economy also allows individual
agents much greater individual liberty than does any other economic arrangement (pp. 30-
31).

Benston’s Theory of Corporate Accountability

Economic liberalism has spawned an influential theory of corporate
accountability, a very concise statement of which has been provided in the
accounting literature by Benston (1982). To whom should corporations be held
accountable? Benston delineates three possible groups: stockholders;
stakeholders (employees, customers, creditors and others with direct
contractual or transactional relations with the corporation); and the general
public. In his theory of corporate accountability, the first two groups,
stockholders and stakeholders, are assured that their interests are effectively
served by the functioning of a free market system in conjunction with internal
and external monitoring systems.
The market for managerial services is presumed to provide sufficient
assurance that stockholders’ interests will be safeguarded. Since owners
(stockholders) hire and fire on the basis of managerial performance, the market
provides considerable assurance that managers will attempt to maximize
stockholder wealth. Creditors are protected by market forces, since the
financial markets work to assure that poor credit performance (irresponsible
stewardship with respect to creditors) will increase borrowing costs.
Employees’ interests will be accommodated because they will vary their work
effort with respect to their total compensation. And finally, the interests of
consumers are also protected by the workings of market forces; in this case the
workings of the market for consumer goods and services.
AAAJ Consumers demand higher quality and safer products, better labelling, information on proper
use, warranties and other things often mentioned by consumer advocates. But they also want
7,1 to pay lower prices. As is the case for employees, a major task of managers is to equate (at the
margin) the amounts consumers are willing to pay with the marginal cost of these attributes
(Benston, 1982, p. 93).
According to Benston, “corporate managers tend to be very concerned with the
10 interests of the shareholders, and as a consequence, they are concerned with
the interests of employees, customers, and creditors” (1982, pp. 93-4). And as to
the accountability of the managers, “external auditors (certified and chartered
independent accountants) and published financial statements serve to monitor
and control the actions of managers” (Benston, 1982, p. 92).
Benston does not explicitly argue that the interests of the general public –
interests that arise as a result of externalities – will necessarily be protected by
the working of market forces. But he takes issue with those (such as Schreuder
and Ramanathan, 1984b) who use externalities as an argument for corporate
social accounting and reporting. The practical problems of such an approach,
Benston suggests, are essentially unsolvable. The practical problems he
discusses include the impossibility of measuring either personal or public
utility, and the impossibility of making required comparisons of interpersonal
utilities. “The required measurements”, he points out, “are not just difficult, but
are conceptually impossible” (Benston, 1982, p. 97). And in light of that
impossibility Benston asserts that “the social responsibility of accountants can
be expressed best by their forbearing from social responsibility accounting”
(1982, p. 102).

Watts and Zimmerman’s Theory of Corporate Accountability

Watts and Zimmerman (1986) go even further. Their Positive Accounting
Theory, can be read as an extensive argument to the effect that even financial
accountability should be deregulated. Market forces, they suggest, can be
counted on to initiate and perpetuate external auditing, to assure that external
auditors will report discovered improprieties and to generate generally
accepted accounting principles.
Stockholders and creditors need assurance that managers are complying
with the terms of their contracts. And managers are prepared to be kept
honest, so to speak, because they believe that the market for managers will
adjust the terms of their future contracts on the basis of their reputations. Thus
Watts and Zimmerman claim that voluntary corporate auditing and related
institutions have evolved over a period of more than 600 years (p. 315).
Auditors are likewise to be kept in line by the working of market forces – in
this case, the market for auditors. Reputations are a key factor in this market,
and since reputations are costly to acquire, auditors have developed various
institutional means (such as professional societies and mutual monitoring by
partners) of minimizing the likelihood of unreported discrepancies.
Watts and Zimmerman even claim that accepted accounting principles have
evolved without regulation. They point out that management compensation
may be determined on the basis of reported earnings, debt contracts may Corporate
restrict dividends to a certain percentage of earnings, and so forth. In such Accountability
cases, different accounting procedures that result in different reported
numbers may result in differences in the cash flows going to the various
parties. The contracting process may thus be seen as the source of accepted
accounting principles – the principles of conservatism and objectivity, for
instance, are instrumental for controlling what managers report. The 11
contracting process may likewise be seen as the source of more specific
accepted procedures, such as lower cost or market for valuation, or revenue
recognition at the point of sale.
In summary, Benston’s theory of corporate accountability suggests that the
only mandatory form of corporate accountability necessary in a free market
system is financial accountability, while Watts and Zimmerman go even
further to suggest that the market can be relied on to assure adequate financial
accountability. Such conservative views of corporate accountability have
fared especially well since the inauguration of widespread economic
deregulation initiated during the heyday of Reaganism/Thatcherism. They
reflect the world view of enlightenment liberalism. But they rest on
philosophical foundations that have been all but destroyed by the work of
Richard Rorty and others who have promoted the “linguistic turn” in the social
sciences.

Contingency and Rorty’s Utopian Liberalism

Rorty is fundamentally opposed to the enlightenment presuppositions that:
● there is such a thing as human nature;
● individuals have something that could be called a core self;
● there is an objectively existing external reality that can be mirrored in
thought and communicated via language;
● Truth (with a capital T) can be found; and
● rationality is based on an accurate representation of “reality”.
His views owe a large debt, which he frequently recognizes, to Gadamer’s
philosophical hermeneutics. Like Gadamer, Rorty sees individuals as the
products of acculturation and culture as the ever changing product of
linguistic practices. His social and political philosophy, however, is not a mere
rehash of Gadamer. Rorty attempts to develop the ultimate social and political
implications of the contextual nature of human existence and the contingency
of our culture and our selves, without recourse to the comfort of religious or
philosophical foundations. In the process, he develops a unique argument for a
utopian liberal society that recognizes the “strong poet” and the
“revolutionary” (very broadly construed) as its cultural heroes.
Rorty sees the self as a network of beliefs and desires that are shaped, to a
large extent, by language and linguistic processes. We are born into a linguistic
AAAJ environment; a world which has already been linguistically carved-up and
7,1 classified. Our perceptions of the world as well as our social interactions are
guided by a pre-existing, socially-constructed “reality“. Likewise, our thinking
is linguistically grounded, as is our sense of morality. In short, as Rorty puts it,
“the human self is created by the use of a vocabulary…” (1989, p. 7).
Vocabularies, however, are not fixed and immutable in Rorty’s view. He
12 follows Wittgenstein’s lead in considering alternative vocabularies as
analogous to tools. Just as some tools are more appropriate for certain tasks
than other tools, some vocabularies are better suited than others for achieving
certain human objectives. The vocabulary of modern physics, for instance, is
more efficient than the vocabulary of Chinese philosophy for guiding the
construction of a space craft. And just as new tools are invented to replace old
tools, new vocabularies may be created to replace old vocabularies. As Rorty
points out:
Revolutionary achievements in the arts, in the sciences and in moral and political thought
typically occur when somebody realizes that two or more of our vocabularies are interfering
with each other, and proceeds to invent a new vocabulary to replace both (1989, p. 12).

But Rorty is not suggesting that totally new vocabularies can be invented. New
vocabularies can be thought of as new ways of describing some part of
“reality”, but new descriptions require a continuation of the accustomed usage
of some words while using other words in new and unaccustomed ways. A new
way of speaking, in other words, requires the creation of new metaphors, and
metaphors are grounded in accepted, familiar usage.
From Rorty’s perspective, new theories are viewed as metaphoric
redescriptions of “reality”. But new theories are not merely metaphoric
redescriptions. They hold the potential for generating radically new
vocabularies which can profoundly change our notions of who we think we are,
what we want to do, and who we want to be. Metaphoric redescriptions,
according to Rorty, are the engines that drive cultural change.
New ways of speaking, of using the language, are constantly being tried –
new ways of describing ourselves and reality. Some catch on and some don’t.
Some are playful and some serious. Some (that catch on) have a very large
impact – a scientific revolution, for instance – and some have negligible
impacts. The appropriate analogy is with evolution. An evolutionary view,
Rorty suggests:
…lets us think of the history of language, and thus of culture, as Darwin taught us to think
of the history of a coral reef. Old metaphors are constantly dying off into literalness, and then
serving as a platform and foil for new metaphors. This analogy lets us think of “our
language” – that is, of the science and culture of twentieth-century Europe – as something
that took shape as a result of a great number of sheer contingencies. Our language and our
culture are as much a contingency, as much a result of thousands of small mutations finding
niches (and millions of others finding no niches), as are the orchids and the anthropoids
(1989, p. 16).
In a Nietzchean spirit, Rorty advocates the full and unflinching acceptance of Corporate
the contingency of both our culture and ourselves. A wilful acceptance of the Accountability
contingency of one’s self, he suggests, opens up the possibility of self-creation
as a goal. But self-creation requires “self-overcoming”; that is, going beyond
what one has become as a result of the accidental circumstances of one’s life
and culture. This is not possible, however, without self-knowledge. Self-
knowledge, in Rorty’s terms, amounts to an ability to “tell a story” about the 13
circumstances of which one is a product, and self-creation means to tell one’s
story in one’s own words, in a way that has never been done before.
This brings us to Rorty’s notion of the “strong poet” as “the person who uses
words as they have never been used before…” (1989, p. 28). The “strong poet”,
according to Rorty, is the individual who:
…is best able to appreciate her own contingency. For she can see, more clearly than the
continuity-seeking historian, critic, or philosopher, that her language is as contingent as her
parents or her historical epoch. She can appreciate the force of the claim that “truth is a
mobile army of metaphors” because, by her own sheer strength, she has broken out of one
perspective, one metaphoric, into another (1989, p. 28).
The strong poet is capable of telling the story of her life as a dramatic narrative
and, according to Rorty:
…to see one’s life, or the life of one’ s community, as a dramatic narrative is to see it as a
process of Nietschean self-overcoming. The paradigm of such a narrative is the life of the
genius who can say of the relevant portion of the past, “Thus I willed it,” because she has
found a way to describe that past which the past never knew, and thereby found a self to be
which her precursors never knew was possible (1989, p. 29).
It must be noted at this point that Rorty is using “strong poet” in a very general
sense; a sense that can include scientists, novelists, philosophers and others
who express themselves in a way that lets us see our world, our selves, and our
life-situations in radically new ways. His “strong poet” includes, for instance,
revolutionary scientists as opposed to normal scientists, and revolutionary
artists as opposed to academic artists.
This would seem to leave Rorty open to the charge that anybody who lives
in their own fantasy land is a strong poet. And, in fact, Rorty agrees with
Freud’s suggestion that everybody consciously or unconsciously is to some
extent influenced by idiosyncratic fantasy with respect to their self image.
Furthermore, there are many who attempt to communicate their fantasies by
unique forms of expression; that is, by creating new metaphors. But Rorty
makes a distinction (in terms consistent with his evolution analogy) between
the strong poet and the mere fantasizer. His distinction is based on whether the
fantasizer creates metaphors that catch on with the rest of us. If we find
someone‘s fantasies merely silly or pointless, they remain fantasies. On the
other hand, if someone’s fantasies produce metaphors which we find useful in
some way, we speak of the result as “art”, or “literature”, or “philosophy”, or
some other term which designates intellectual achievement.
AAAJ The difference between genius and fantasy is not the difference between impresses which
lock on to something universal, some antecedent reality out there in the world or deep within
7,1 the self, and those which do not. Rather, it is the difference between idiosyncrasies which just
happen to catch on with other people – happen because of the contingencies of some
historical situation, some particular need which a given community happens to have at a
given time (Rorty, 1989, p. 37).

14 The strong poet, in this sense, is a cultural hero not merely because she or he is
good at creating unique expressions, but because they are unique expressions
that fulfil a public need.
What does all this have to do with liberalism? As a preliminary to answering
this question, it is necessary to describe the kind of person Rorty refers to as an
“ironist”, because the citizens of his ideal liberal society are all “ironists”.
“Ironists”, according to Rorty, are persons who combine “commitment with a
sense of the contingency of their own commitment” (1989, p. 61). While
recognizing that there is no ultimate or absolute foundation for any particular
set of desires and beliefs – “anything can be made to look good or bad by being
redescribed…” (Rorty, 1989, p. 73) – the “ironist” is still willing to embark on a
course of action, or support a judgement, on the basis of currently held values.
Ironists recognize the contingency of their language, their communities and
their selves. Rorty populates his utopian liberal society with ironists because
he identifies freedom with the recognition of contingency. He asserts, “Such
recognition is the chief virtue of the members of a liberal society” (1989, p. 46).
Recognition of contingency is a basic requirement for freedom, because the
assumption of non-contingency requires the notion of some sort of religious or
philosophical foundation which serves as a form of authority in the guidance
of human values and actions. From Rorty’s perspective, a society that requires
such foundations is a society that is still looking for some form of divinity to
underwrite its existence and legitimize its practices and institutions.
Rorty’s ideal liberal society, therefore, would be a radically pluralistic
society characterized by free and open conversation regarding common
purposes and public policy.
A liberal society is one which is content to call “true” (or “right“ or “just“) whatever the
outcome of undistorted communication happens to be, whatever view wins in a free and open
encounter (Rorty, 1989, p. 67).
Ironists are ideal citizens for such a society because they are open to
persuasion via the dialectic give and take of free and open conversation. Rorty
notes that such a society requires “undistorted communication”, but unlike
Habermas, he:
do[es] not think there is much to be said about what counts as “undistorted” expect the sort
you get when you have democratic political institutions and the conditions for making these
institutions function (1989, p. 84).
He points out that:
“Free discussion” here does not mean “free from ideology”, but simply the sort which goes on
when the press, the judiciary, the elections and the universities are free, social mobility is
 frequent and rapid, literacy is universal, higher education is common, and peace and wealth Corporate
have made possible the leisure necessary to listen to lots of different people and think about
what they say (1989, p. 84). Accountability
But Rorty’s vision of a utopian liberalism, regardless of the eloquence of its
literacy and philosophical portrayal, is woefully incomplete with respect to
more concrete social, economic and political issues such as corporate
accountability. In comparing Rorty with Dewey (one of Rorty’s most influential 15
intellectual mentors), Bernstein points out that Rorty’s concerns seem to end
where Dewey’s really begin:
Dewey would certainly agree with Rorty that all justification involves reference to existing
social practices and that philosophy is not a discipline that has any special knowledge of
knowing or access to more fundamental foundations. But for Dewey this is where the real
problems begin. What are the social practices to which we should appeal? How do we
discriminate the better from the worse? Which ones need to be discarded, criticized and
reconstructed? Dewey sought to deal with these problems without any appeal
to…foundational metaphors. According to Rorty’s own analysis, these are genuine problems,
but Rorty never quite gets around to asking these and related questions…Dewey constantly
struggled with questions which Rorty never quite faces…(Bernstein, 1986, p. 48).
Rorty’s vision of a utopian liberal society leaves considerable room for
intellectual imagination in fleshing out its implications with respect to more
concrete social issues such as corporate accountability. In the following
section, I suggest ways of extending Rorty’s notions regarding the powers of
metaphoric redescription to an analysis of corporate activities. In a subsequent
section, I shall turn to Dewey for suggestions regarding the role of public
discussion in the evaluation of alternative social practices and the pursuit of
social intelligence. I shall also rely on Barber’s conception of “strong
democracy” for a more contemporary view of the role of conversation in the
creation of public interest. Hopefully, a theory of corporate accountability will
begin to emerge that will be seen as congruent with the spirit of Rorty’s more
general philosophical vision of utopian liberalism.

Corporate Activity and the Power of Description

Since new descriptions have the potential of changing our self-images, what we
want to do, and what we want to become, the obvious question that would be
raised by ironist citizens in a discussion of corporate accountability would be:
what do corporate activities have to do with the powers of description? In this
section I shall suggest three important ways in which corporations exercise
significant powers of description; powers that are extremely relevant to the
issue of corporate accountability.

Technology and the Scientific Description of Nature

Rorty’s “strong poet” category includes the revolutionary scientist who comes
up with bold new ways of describing nature. New scientific theories enable us
to envision new things to do or different ways of doing old things.
Corporations, accordingly, see new scientific theories as enabling them to
AAAJ produce new products and/or to use new technologies in the production of
7,1 familiar products. The commercial development of nuclear power and the
emerging commercial applications of genetic engineering are dramatic
examples of corporate use of revolutionary scientific theories. But as Kuhn
pointed out, revolutionary developments in science open up the opportunity
for “normal scientists” to carry out the seemingly endless “mopping up”
16 operations that extend the applicability of the new scientific paradigm. These
less dramatic scientific developments generate additional opportunities for the
development of new products. The power of redescriptions represented by new
scientific theories are frequently captured by corporations and employed for
the commercial development of new technology and new products. New
technology and new products have the potential for very dramatic changes in
our culture, our way of life and the natural world. The impact of electric power,
automated farm machinery, automobiles and computers provide vivid
examples of potential cultural impact of new scientific theories, or in Rorty’s
terms, new ways of describing nature.

Advertising and the Redescription of Individuals

The ongoing introduction of new products (which relies either directly or
indirectly on redescriptions of nature) and the attendant advertising raises
another consideration with respect to corporate activities and the power of
redescription. Recent anthropological work has shed light on the role of
advertising in the process of redefining self-image and the potential for
generating cultural change.
As cultural and social distinctions are embedded in language, so are they
embedded in the artifacts produced by a culture. In our consumer culture, such
distinctions are embedded in consumer goods – the clothes we wear, the houses
we live in, the cars we drive and even the food we eat are serving much more
than simply the satisfactions of material needs for shelter, transportation or
nutrition. In the words of anthropologist Grant McCracken:
The consumer goods on which the consumer lavishes time, attention and income are charged
with cultural meaning. Consumers use this meaning to entirely cultural purposes. They use
the meaning of consumer goods to express cultural categories and principles, cultivate
ideals, create and sustain lifestyles, construct notions of the self and create (and survive)
social change. Consumption is thoroughly cultural in character (McCracken, 1988, p. xi).

McCracken emphasizes the fact that Western culture generally, and North
American culture especially, is characterized by the mutability of our cultural
categories (of time, space, nature and person) and our cultural principles. The
mutability of cultural categories suggests that the objective features built into
consumer goods can take on different meanings as cultural categories shift. It
also suggests that the relationship between cultural meaning and the objective
features of consumer goods is highly subject to manipulation.
 Social groups can seek to change their place in the categorical scheme while marketers can Corporate
seek to establish or encourage a new culture category of person (e.g. the “teenager”, the
“yuppie”) in order to create a new market segment (p. 74). Accountability
There are many potential sources of change in the cultural meaning of
consumer goods, but advertising surely looms as the most obvious if not the
most powerful. In McCracken’s words:
17
Advertising works as a potential method of meaning transfer by bringing the consumer good
and a representation of the culturally constituted world together within the frame of a
particular advertisement (p. 77).
In a very apt analogy he notes that:
Advertising is a kind of conduit through which meaning is constantly being poured in its
movement from the culturally constituted world to consumer goods. Through advertising,
old and new goods are constantly giving up old meanings and taking on new ones (p. 79).
From a Rortyan perspective, corporate advertising can be seen as playing an
active role in the definition and redefinition of our selves, who we think we are,
and what we want to become.

Mass Media and the Description of Events

Advertising is usually aimed at changing our self-images as individuals, but
corporations also play a major role, via their control of the mass media, in the
ongoing process of describing and redescribing the way we see ourselves
collectively (as a community or as a nation). Television news, newspapers and
news magazines are the main source of descriptions of current events, and
these are predominantly corporate products. Which events receive coverage
and how they are described are largely corporate decisions. Likewise, which
problems are analysed in the mass media, and in what depth, are largely
corporate decisions. This power of describing current events carries with it the
potential for influencing not only how we see ourselves collectively, as a
community and as a nation, it also has the potential for influencing what we
perceive our collective options to be and which of the perceived options we will
support.
Control of other forms of mass media, however, gives corporations a much
more subtle and pervasive influence over our self-images than either
advertising or the news media. The publishing and entertainment industries,
for instance, determine which novels are promoted and which are rejected,
what kinds of movies are produced and promoted, and what themes are
emphasized in television programmes. These forms of mass media project
fantasies and values in a more subtle way than advertising. They accordingly
play a powerful role in shaping hopes, fears and aspirations, not only of
individuals, but collectively. Attitudes in Sylvester Stallone’s “Rambo” movies,
for instance, were widely reflected in the attitudes of many young US men
during the recent Gulf War. The contemporary power of such forms of mass
media is succinctly conveyed by Rorty when he notes that:
AAAJ …the novel, the movie and the TV program have, gradually but steadily, replaced the
sermon and the treatise as the principal vehicles of moral change and progress (1989, p. xvi).
7,1
But as Rorty fails to point out, it is primarily big corporations that have the
power to determine which novels, movies and TV programmes are produced
and promoted, and there is good reason to believe that corporations weigh the
potential for profit much more heavily than literary or cultural merit in
18 making such decisions.
In summary, I contend that the ironists of Rorty’s utopian liberal society
would, after careful examination, conclude that corporations exercise
significant influence and control over cultural change in three broad areas.
Corporations influence cultural change with respect to redescriptions of nature
via technology and production. Corporations influence cultural change with
respect to individual redescriptions via advertising, and also via the publishing
and entertainment industries. Finally, corporations influence cultural change
via their control of the news media.

Liberalisms and Social Intelligence

The preceding analysis should leave no doubt that corporate financial
accountability, in and of itself, is woefully inadequate for protection of the
public interest. But it also raises a less obvious issue that must be addressed
before examining the corporate accountability issue in more detail.
Specifically it raises an issue about whether, or under what conditions, the
technological and cultural changes generated by corporate activities can be
viewed as compatible with Rorty’s utopian liberal society.
In the world-view of accounting theorists such as Benston, Watts,
Zimmerman and the Rochester School in general, corporate activities are
considered quite compatible with the ideals of liberalism because, under the
assumption of ontological individualism, they are assumed to be in response to
the desires of citizens who are, in the words of laissez-faire economists, “voting
with their dollars”. Since Rorty’s analysis eliminates the assumption of
ontological individualism, the analysis and conclusions of laissez-faire
liberalism no longer hold. The changes brought about by corporate activities
can no longer be attributed, explicitly or implicitly, to the pre-existing desires
of the citizens. And Benston’s (1982) approach to corporate accountability, in
and of itself, can in no way be considered adequate for protecting the public
interest.
Changes brought about by corporate activities are initiated in the interests
of a relatively small proportion of the citizenry (owners and/or managers)
acting in their self interests, but without the analytical framework of
neoclassical economic theory we have no basis for assuming that the pursuit of
self interest by owners and managers translates into any kind of social
harmony whatsoever. The overall impact of corporate activities on the natural
environment and on social, economic and political relations may or may not be
in accordance with the wishes of the citizenry. The potential impact of
corporate activities raises profound questions about corporate social Corporate
accountability. With respect to Rorty’s liberal ideals, such changes may or may Accountability
not be conducive to the activities and ideas of his “strong poets” and
“revolutionaries”.
Rorty’s philosophical perspective undermines the analytical framework of
economic liberalism and its derivative views of corporate accountability, but
does not provide an alternative framework that is sufficiently detailed for 19
analysis of concrete issues such as the impact of corporate activities. If we are
to flesh out his notion of a utopian liberal society in a way that will be useful
for developing an alternative theory of corporate accountability, we must look
elsewhere for such a framework. As indicated earlier, it seems appropriate to
look to Rorty’s intellectual mentor, John Dewey, for a compatible, non-
foundational analysis of liberalism and socio/economic issues. Bernstein (1986)
notes:
It is not accidental that a philosopher such as Richard Rorty who has brilliantly criticized
much of the sterility and irrelevance of recent philosophy cites Dewey as one of the most
important philosophers of the twentieth century and calls for a return to the spirit of Dewey’s
pragmatism (p. 271).
Rorty has, in fact, cited Dewey as one of the philosophers who has helped to
“provide a redescription for political liberalism” (1989, p. 54).
Writing in the 1930s, Dewey specifically addressed the issue of liberalism
and social change, noting that, “Changes that are revolutionary in effect are in
process in every phase of life” (1963a, p. 56). He differed markedly, however,
with economic liberals about the need for conscious social direction of the
changes that were happening, noting that:
The idea of a pre-established harmony between the existing so-called capitalistic regime and
democracy is as absurd a piece of metaphysical speculation as human history has ever
evolved (1963b, p. 72).
Noting that the enduring values of liberalism are: “liberty; the development of
the inherent capacities of individuals made possible through liberty; and the
central role of free intelligence in inquiry, discussion and expression” (1963b, p.
32), Dewey claims early liberals were unaware that their conceptions of liberty,
individuality and intelligence, were historically conditioned. Or, as Rorty
would say, early liberals were unaware that these values are subject to
redescription. By the twentieth century the failure to reconceptualize these
values (the failure of redescription) had, according to Dewey, led to a crisis of
liberalism.
The crisis in liberalism was especially attributable to the presupposition of
ontological individualism and the related conception of intelligence, “the
conception that intelligence is an individual possession” (Dewey, 1963a, p. 45).
This conception of intelligence supported the conclusions of economic liberals:
…that the regime of economic liberty as they conceived it, would almost automatically direct
production through competition into channels that would provide, as effectively as possible,
socially needed commodities and services (Dewey, 1963a, p. 35).
AAAJ Thus economic liberals “held that beneficial social change can come about in
7,1 but one way, the way of private economic enterprise, socially undirected…”
(Dewey, 1963a, p. 34) – a view that continues to be perpetuated by the Chicago
school of economics and the Rochester school of accounting.
Intelligence, according to Dewey, relies on experience. Intelligence, he
suggests, can be thought of as “conversion of past experience into knowledge
20 and projection of that knowledge in ideas and purposes that anticipate what
may come to be in the future and that indicate how to realize what is desired”
(1963a, p. 50). But the experience upon which intelligence is based is never
limited to the experience of the individual. According to Dewey, individuals
“appropriate and respond to the intelligence, the knowledge, ideas and
purposes that have been integrated in the medium in which…(they) live”
(1963a, p. 69). With reference to modern modes of transportation, Dewey points
out that they have been made possible by, among other things, “advances in
science, in mathematics, astronomy, physics (and) chemistry” (1963a, p. 68).
The medium in which the individual lives has been made possible by “the
cumulative intelligence of a multitude of cooperating individuals, and by the
use of his native capacities he makes some phase of this intelligence his own”
(1963a, p. 69). In short, “intelligence is a social asset” (Dewey, 1963a, p. 67).
When Dewey says that liberalism “is committed to the use of freed
intelligence as the method of directing change” (1963a, p. 56), he is referring to
the use of social intelligence. The question remains, however, as to how social
intelligence is to be applied to the direction of social change. More specifically,
with respect to corporate activities, how can social intelligence be brought to
bear on the formulation of public policies that will encourage activities that
have desirable social consequences, and discourage or prohibit activities that
have undesirable social consequences? Most importantly, with respect to the
present article, what are the implications of the concept of social intelligence
for corporate accountability issues?
At this point we can return to Rorty, for he has, however obliquely,
addressed the issue of public policy formation in a non-foundational liberal
society. He denies that there is any need for consensus regarding philosophical
issues such as human nature, justice, or morality. All that is needed is free and
open discussion regarding desirable courses of action:
…all that matters for liberal politics is the widely shared conviction that…we shall call
“true” or “good” whatever is the outcome of free discussion… (Rorty, 1989, p. 84).
Rorty also suggests that such discourse would not be characterized by appeal
to definitions, general principles and theories. It would instead be
characterized by anecdote and narrative.
The political discourse of the democracies, at its best, is the exchange of what Wittgenstein
called “reminders for a particular purpose” – anecdotes about the past effects of various
practices and predictions of what will happen if, or unless, some of these are altered (Rorty,
1985, p. 219).
Rorty (1982, p. 196) further suggests that “predictions phrased in the sterile Corporate
jargon of ‘quantified’ social sciences (‘maximizes satisfaction’, ‘increases Accountability
conflict’, etc.)” – jargon which is incorporated into Watts and Zimmerman’s
Positive Accounting Theory (1986) and other writings of the Rochester school
– are of dubious value to the task of policy making. “Predictions will do ‘policy
making’ no good if they are not phrased in the terms in which policy can be
formulated” (Rorty, 1982, p. 196). 21
Rorty’s discussions of public policy formation are scattered and suggestive,
providing no straightforward guidance for a theory of corporate
accountability. Barber (1984), on the other hand, has provided a very detailed
study of the notions which are only implicit in Rorty’s suggestions. Rorty
implies that public interests can be created (as opposed to being discovered),
whereas Barber discusses the necessary conditions for that creative process to
work. Rorty hints that policy making requires an appropriate vocabulary,
whereas Barber discusses the process for creating a public vocabulary. The
process for creating and maintaining a public vocabulary is at the core of
Barber’s notion of “strong democracy”. It is a process that should provide
valuable insights about how social intelligence can be brought to bear on the
direction of social change, and how corporate social accountability can play an
important role in that process.

Democratic Talk and the Creation of Public Ends

Weak forms of democracy, according to Barber, assume various forms of
ontological individualism with the attendant notions that private interests are
inherent endowments of individuals and that public interest results from
overlapping private individual interests. Democratic freedom, in the weak
conception, is essentially the freedom to choose among pre-existing ends,
whether marketplace goods or political candidates. The Rochester view of
corporate accountability can, accordingly, be seen to entail a weak form of
democracy.
On the other hand, Barber’s theory of strong democracy shares Rorty’s
assumption that individuals are shaped and reshaped by the linguistic world
they inhabit: “language is ineluctably communal and its evolution determines
the evolution of self and other…” (Barber, 1984, p. 193). Barber’s theory is also
akin to Rorty’s in that linguistic redescriptions can change the individual’s
perceptions with respect to what is possible and what is desirable. The result
is a theory of public interest issues that is radically at odds with the theory of
economic individualism and with the Rochester school’s theory of corporate
accountability.
According to Barber, “the evolution of language takes several forms that are
pertinent to democratic politics and involve reformulation and
reconceptualization” (p. 194). Past events and ideas can be redescribed to yield
different notions of where we have been and where we may want to go; present
paradigms can be challenged by linguistic redescriptions; and visions of the
future can be created by imagination and communicated via language.
AAAJ If language as a living, changing expression of an evolving community can both encapsulate
and challenge the past, it also provides a vehicle for exploring the future. Language’s
7,1 flexibility and its susceptibility to innovation permit men to construct their visions of the
future first in the realm of words, within whose confines a community can safely conduct its
deliberations. Language can offer new solutions to old problems by altering how we perceive
these problems and can make new visions accessible to traditional communities by the
imaginative use (and transvaluation) of familiar language. This is the essence of “public
22 thinking” (Barber, 1984, p. 196).
Politics, Barber notes, begins with conflict and uncertainty, but democratic talk
allows for the exchange of imaginary solutions to problems and the challenge
of each others’ assumptions and predictions. Democratic participation also
requires that individuals re-evaluate their values, preferences and beliefs. “It
makes preferences and opinions earn legitimacy by forcing them to run the
gauntlet of public deliberation and public judgment” (Barber, 1984, p. 136). But
in the process of public deliberation and interaction, preferences and opinions
will not only be forced to earn legitimacy, they will be transformed as
participants are forced to re-examine their own attitudes, values and opinions.
It is a process that “aims at reasonable public action based on community
consent…” (Barber, 1984, p. 161).
Barber’s view of the political process has important implications for the
concept of public goods and public interest, and for theories of corporate social
accountability. Economic liberalism conceives of public goods as the
overlapping of immutable private interests, whereas Barber sees public goods
and public interest as the results of a participative democratic process.
Participatory politics deals with public disputes and conflicts of interest by subjecting them
to a never-ending process of deliberation, decision and action. Each step in the process is a
flexible part of ongoing procedures that are embedded in concrete historical conditions and
in social and economic actualities. In place of the search for a prepolitical independent
ground or for an immutable rational plan, strong democracy relies on participation in an
evolving problem-solving community that creates public ends where there were none before
by means of its own activity and of its own existence as a focal point of the quest for mutual
solutions. In such communities, public ends are neither extrapolated from absolutes nor
“discovered” in a pre-existing “hidden consensus”. They are literally forged through the act
of public participation, created through common deliberation and common action and the
effect that deliberation and action have on interests, which change shape and direction when
subjected to these participatory processes (Barber, 1984, pp. 151-2).
Barber’s process of strong democracy provides an excellent answer to the
question of how to apply social intelligence to the direction of corporate
activities in Rorty’s utopian liberal society. Public policies aimed at
encouraging desirable activity and prohibiting or controlling undesirable
activity can be forged in the give and take of participative democratic
deliberation. The participative process, however, would require information
about corporate activities that goes far beyond the financial information that is
currently made available to the public. It would require the establishment of a
significantly more far-reaching accountability relationship between
corporations and the public than currently exists in Western liberal societies.
The Process of Corporate Accountability Corporate
Expanding the accountability relationship between corporations and the Accountability
public raises two distinct types of issues. First there is an issue of legitimation;
i.e. whether such an expansion of accountability violates the ideals of
liberalism. This issue has been the primary subject of this article. The
discussion has presented a contemporary (social constructionist) view of
liberalism that requires an expanded form of corporate accountability. 23
The second type of issue raised by expansion of corporate accountability is
the issue of implementation – what form should corporate accountability take
and how should the process work. These are the issues that middle-of-the-road
liberals have attempted to deal with without the benefit of a coherent
intellectual framework. Mathews (1991) has provided a survey of prominent
conceptual and operational models for an expansion of corporate
accountability. He notes that such models “must be viewed against the limited
conceptual and operational frameworks available for guidance and evaluation”
(p. 2). The models are reviewed “with the expectation that at some time there
could be opportunities for additional disclosures” (p. 1). His view is that,
“Reformists should be ready for that time!” ( p. 1), with or without a conceptual
framework.
With regard to the conceptual framework provided by Rorty’s utopian
liberalism, can any generalizations be made concerning the appropriate form
of an expanded corporate accountability relationship? This question is dealt
with very briefly in this section.
It should be noted that some proposed models would definitely be
inappropriate for Rorty’s utopian liberal society because of philosophical
contradictions. I am referring to models based on the welfare economics
branch of neoclassical economics. Estes’ (1976) model is a notable example. It
is an intellectually sophisticated model which employs the neoclassical
economists’ concepts of consumer surplus, externalities and benefit/cost
analysis to compare the total utility produced by a firm (the social benefit) with
the total utility consumed (the social cost). The problem with this and similar
models is that, in their reliance on neoclassical economics, they are
presupposing ontological individualism. Accordingly, all of the social
constructivist arguments that have been levelled against the “right-wing”
theorists apply equally to economics-based “middle-of-the-road” models of
corporate accountability.
In a positive sense, Rorty’s conceptual framework for a utopian liberal
society does not support the development of any specific form for corporate
accountability. The most that can be done is to provide an overview of the
process within which any specific model might or might not be adopted. The
process, of course, is the process of strong democracy, the process of an on-
going political conversation conducted in a participative democracy. Certain
models of accountability might be adopted as a response to currently perceived
problems and concerns. But public hopes, expectations and concerns are
always changing in a dynamic, evolving society. The problematic issues facing
AAAJ one generation may be replaced by a radically different set of problematic
7,1 issues perceived by another generation. The commercial use of nuclear power,
for instance, was not a problematic issue in the first half of this century, and
the potential commercial use of genetic engineering has only recently emerged
as a problematic issue. Each emerging problematic issue may evoke different
public responses in so far as accountability is concerned.
24 The accountability relationship may also change for reasons other than the
emergence of new technology or new corporate practices. As Roberts and
Scapens note:
The real power of accounting perhaps lies in the way in which, as a structure of meaning, it
comes to define what shall and shall not count as significant… (p. 450).

The accountability relationship itself, however, is a dynamic interactive

linguistic relationship, and with the ongoing practice of accounting “the
structures of meaning which are accounting…gradually evolve and change”
(Roberts and Scapens, 1985, p. 448). As the vocabulary of public accountability
evolves, perceptions of what is possible and desirable in an accountability
model is likely to change.
Rorty’s utopian liberalism offers no foundation on which to build an ideal
model of corporate accountability that would be appropriate for all times and
all circumstances. The process of strong democracy might conceivably result
in a call for voluntary corporate disclosures. On the other hand, it might
result in a call for some form of comprehensive corporate social and
environmental report to be prepared periodically in accordance with publicly
generated standards, complete with a requirement of an independent social
audit. Or it might result in a call for some form of accountability anywhere
between these two possibilities. “[The] widely shared conviction that…we
shall call ‘true’ or ‘good’ whatever is the outcome of free discussion” (Rorty,
1989, p. 84) applies to the formulation of accountability policy as much as it
does to more abstract issues of justice and fairness.

In Defense of Liberalism
Many contemporary radical theorists, especially followers of Habermas, would
no doubt agree with Rorty’s proposal that “we shall call ‘true’ and ‘good’
whatever is the outcome of free discussion”, and his view that “the only general
account to be given of our criteria for truth is one which refers to ‘undistorted
communication’” (1989, p. 84). But they would almost certainly disagree with
his statement that:
I do not think there is much to be said about what counts as “undistorted” except “the sort
you get when you have democratic political institutions and the conditions for making these
institutions function” (1989, p. 84).

Puxty’s criticism of the corporate social accountability movement is an

excellent case in point. Parker’s (1986) suggestion that “the process of social
accounting standards setting may promote more widespread discussion…” Corporate
(p. 71), drew the following response from Puxty: Accountability
Discussion of any kind is to be welcomed. However, the kind of discussion that necessarily is
undertaken in a society in which there is domination of some by others is a discussion in
which the agenda is fixed by powerful interests, the terms of debate are distorted by the
ideology implicit in the language of communication that is employed, and the possibilities of
true discourse leading to a freely arrived-at result that is genuinely the outcome of the 25
discussion is rendered impossible by the domination of one party by another that is
immanent in the debate (1986, p. 104).
In other words, Puxty discounts the discussion about corporate social
accountability on the grounds that it is inconsistent with Habermas’ theory of
undistorted communication. In any case, however, Puxty leaves no doubt that
he is opposed to an expansion of corporate accountability, because it would be
in the service of furthering the legitimation of capitalist socio-economic
arrangements.
To the extent that accounting as an institution is independent of any direct control by any
ruling power group, social accounting as a response is merely an extension for purposes of
self-legitimation by the institutional forces governing accounting; to the extent that it
legitimates and reproduces class relations, social accounting is only a more effective way of
doing so (Puxty, 1986, p. 100).
Radicals, Puxty points out, “do not so much criticize corporations per se, as
reject the whole socio-economic framework within which they operate” (1986,
p. 105). The implication is that radicals are working for the wholesale
dissolution of capitalist institutions. For Habermasian radicals the notion of a
coming “crisis of legitimation” raises the possibility that the capitalist system
is moving toward self-disintegration, and expansion of corporate social
accountability can be seen merely as a postponement of a pending legitimation
crisis.
In his 1991 response to Gray et al. (1991) and Parker (1991), however, Puxty
explicitly denies that he is opposed to “anything short of violent revolution and
the dictatorship of the proletariat…” (p. 36). He is opposed to corporate social
reporting (CSR) as advocated by Gray et al. and Parker because it is not in
accord with Habermasian conditions for discourse. As opposed to everyday
speech, which Puxty characterizes as action, “[discourse] is speech which is
specifically designed to reach an understanding” (1991, p. 43). The current
proposals for CSR, he asserts, are not consistent with “true discursive
dialogue” (1991, p. 43). According to Puxty, the current proposals for social
reporting, regardless of whether the reports are to be produced by the
corporation or by outsiders, are proposals whereby “[each] party is seeking to
bolster their own position…” (1991, p. 43). Such forms of social reporting are a
“dead end”, he contends, because “they do not comprise any basis for
dissolving the dominational and exploitative structures that are the cause of
the problems they are addressing” (1991, p. 44).
What does Puxty suggest? How can the existing dominational and
exploitative structures be dissolved? Unfortunately, Puxty does not provide a
AAAJ useful answer. He does point out that, “the mechanism for such dissolution…is
7,1 one in which society itself becomes involved, through discourse, in a course of
self-discovery and emancipation” (1991, p. 43). On the other hand, he strongly
suggests that undistorted communication is impossible in the context of
existing institutional structures, stating that, “I reject the possibility of
progress of society through current pluralist institutions…” (1991, p. 41). But
26 this line of argument leaves us in a “chicken-or-egg” situation; i.e. the existing
dominational structures must be dissolved through undistorted
communication, but undistorted communication is impossible given the
existing institutional structures.
A complete analysis of Habermas’ concept of undistorted communication is
obviously beyond the scope of the present article, but the direction of a Rortyan
liberal response to the impasse implicit in Puxty’s argument can at least be
indicated. Both Rortyan liberals and Habermasian radicals agree on the virtue
of undistorted communication. The heart of the difference between the two is
that the latter seeks some form of unquestionable criteria on which to judge a
given communicative situation as distorted or undistorted. That is, the
Habermasian wants legitimacy criteria for his or her view. In the sense given
by Lyotard the Habermasian is a “modernist” and the Rortyan is a “post-
modernist”:
Science has always been…obliged to legitimate the rules of its own game. It then produces a
discourse of legitimation with respect to its own status, a discourse called philosophy. I will
use the term modern to designate any science that legitimates itself with reference to a
metadiscourse of this kind making an explicit appeal to some grand narrative, such as the
dialectics of Sprit, the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational or working
subject, or the creation of wealth (Lyotard, 1989, p. xxiii).
Post-modern, on the other hand, is defined by Lyotard as “incredulity towards
metanarratives” (p. xxiv).
The Rortyan sees Habermas’ theory of communicative action as a grand
narrative of emancipation which is concerned with its own legitimation. The
Rortyan, on the other hand, displays a post-modern suspicion of all
metanarratives, including Habermas’. The Rortyan is suspicious of
universalism in any form, especially when it is a universal theory of rationality.
Thus, Rorty argues that, within the context of his “de-theoreticized sense of
community”, his claim that undistorted communication is the essence of liberal
politics does not need “a theory of communicative competence as a backup”
(1985, p. 173).
The Rortyan defence of liberalism against criticisms such as Puxty’s would
involve a philosophical challenge to the credibility of Habermas’
metanarrative. This does not mean, however, that the Rortyan liberal would
discard the entirety of Habermas’ analysis of communicative action. The
Rortyan may find Habermas’ theory unconvincing at the level of grand
narrative, while finding much of the analysis convincing with respect to actual
obstacles to undistorted communication. Although Rorty himself has shown
no awareness that existing institutional arrangements contain some real
obstacles to undistorted communication, it does not follow that other “Rortyan Corporate
liberals” are bound to ignore such obstacles. Rortyan liberals would surely Accountability
agree wholeheartedly with Arrington and Puxty’s (1991) Habermasian claim
that:
In the case of money, one can “speak” only until the money runs out, and one can speak
longer and louder the more one has. In the case of “power” one can speak only if one “knows”
the language (linguistic competence) and has a forum to use it (p. 46). 27
Given that existing institutions do contain some very real obstacles to
undistorted communication, the question is what to do about it. The Rortyan
liberal would see a need to be alert to any real or potential threats to
undistorted communication and to attempt to eliminate those threats. She or he
would surely find Habermas’ analysis of communicative action extremely
valuable in terms of its potential for pinpointing threats to free
communication, but would not see Habermas’ suggestion that capitalist
society is heading towards a “crisis of legitimation” as a justification for
opposing an expansion of corporate accountability.

Conclusion
Rorty has proposed a view of individuals and society as contingent products
of the process of linguistic evolution, a process that is driven by metaphoric
redescriptions. It is a social constructivist view that denies the availability of
any philosophical, scientific or religious foundation. Rorty, accordingly, rejects
the ontological individualism of economic liberalism as well as the
enlightenment notion that progressive change can be guided by rational
scientific inquiry. He claims, however, that his view does not negate the
possibility of the traditional ideals of liberalism (liberty and democracy), and
offers a utopian view of liberal society in which the “true” and the “good” are
products of linguistic interaction and politics is guided by free and open
discussion. His utopian liberal society is guided by the shared understanding
that results from the process of linguistic interaction, a process that ongoingly
generates, and adjusts to, metaphoric redescriptions which change perceptions
of what is possible and what is desirable.
Rorty’s analysis, however, is conducted on a very abstract level and does not
deal with socio-economic or political issues such as the impact of corporate
activities. His claims about the power of metaphoric redescription can be
extended to an analysis of corporate activities; an analysis that indicates that
corporations have a very powerful impact on society as a result of activities
involving redescriptions of nature (new scientific theories and their
technological applications), redescriptions of individuals (via advertising
activities), and descriptions and redescriptions of events (via control of the
news, artistic, and entertainment media).
The potential impact of corporate activities threatens Rorty’s ideal of a
society that is guided by the shared understanding that results from
democratic linguistic interaction. It is a threat that is not dealt with by Rorty.
AAAJ However, with the assistance of Dewey’s analysis of social intelligence and
7,1 Barber’s ideas about “strong democracy”, both of which are quite compatible
with Rorty’s anti-foundationalist philosophical views and his liberal ideals,
Rorty’s conception of a utopian liberal society can be fleshed out sufficiently to
accommodate an analysis of this threat. It is within the context of such an
analysis that the issue of corporate accountability is raised.
28 One of the enduring ideals of liberalism, according to Dewey, is that free
intelligence is the agent of social change. For economic liberals, free
intelligence directs social change via the rational decisions of individuals in the
market place. Dewey pointed out, however, that this conclusion relied on an
outdated conception of intelligence as an individual possession, as well as an
outmoded notion that the activities of corporations could be treated as the
activities of individuals. If the outmoded notion of ontological individualism is
scrapped and intelligence is viewed in its social context, as a social asset, and
if the outmoded notion of corporations as individuals is scrapped, then the
social harmony conclusions of economic liberalism no longer hold and social
intelligence must be applied to corporate activities via public policy.
The ideals of liberalism require that public policy be shaped in accordance
with the wishes of the citizens. According to economic liberalism, the public
interest could be treated as the overlapping of private interests, and evaluated
by benefit/cost models and other analytic techniques which relied on market
data from individual buying and selling decisions. But once the idea of
ontological individualism is discarded, such public-policy tools of neoclassical
economic theory are invalidated. And if Rorty’s claim that the “true” and the
“good” (including the public good) are products of linguistic interaction, then a
new approach to liberal public-policy making is needed. Barber’s theory of
strong democracy outlines an approach to public policy making that relies
exclusively on linguistic interaction. He describes the necessary
communicative process for creating public goods and public interest; a process
that relies on free and open democratic conversation.
Since the public policy in question relates to corporate activities, the
communicative process requires information about those activities,
information that may go far beyond financial information. If such a process is
to work, it will require a more extensive accountability relationship between
corporations and the public than currently exists. But the precise nature of the
accountability relationship must be hammered out in a democratic
communicative process in response to conditions and perceived needs as they
arise. No precise form can be delineated that can be presumed good for all
times and all circumstances.
The intellectual framework just outlined provides very little in the way of
concrete guidelines for the expansion of corporate accountability, but it would
be a mistake to assume that it has no significance for liberal theorists. With
respect to the ongoing battle between government organizations and the
corporations which are created by government, Dewey has observed that the
struggle “has been in large degree a struggle to see whether the child begot by
the state or the progenitor should control the subsequent activities of the Corporate
parent” (1963b, p. 69). The intellectual framework of right-wing laissez-faire Accountability
liberalism supports the right of the corporate child to remain free of any
control by the governmental parent. The intellectual framework based on
Rorty’s utopian liberalism, on the other hand, supports the right of the
governmental parent to control the activities of the corporate child.
Finally, it must be noted that the framework of Rorty’s utopian liberalism, 29
although it has considerable affinity with the social theory upon which much
contemporary radical research is based, would surely be found lacking by
radicals. While it does not preclude the possibility of socialized control of
business activities, neither does it preclude a legitimate role for private
ownership and market activities. It insists only that the democratic process of
free and open discussion by the citizens be recognized as the legitimate source
of public interest and public policy formation. It is a framework within which
the many seemingly ad hoc proposals for corporate social accountability can
be seen as suggestions in a conversation, the fate of any given proposal to be
determined by the give and take of the conversation.

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