they are recording and interpreting. The dominant method in this paradigm is
the quantitative analysis of data. In addition, firms and individuals are assumed to
have a single goal: maximizing utility (profits in accounting).9
Instead of the mainstream rationalist approach in economics and accounting,
a more, but not exclusively, interpretive approach may be employed, with a focus
on language (structure and symbols), to reconstruct the function and method
of the MCC in its historical context.10 Ahmed Belkaoui emphasizes the linguis
tic nature of accounting, based on the symbols and grammatical rules as general
characteristics in language.11 An interpretive approach departing from the idea
of symbols and grammar may be useful, as previous explanations of profits and
economic impact of the slave trade, based on a mainstream rationalist approach
in accounting and economics, remain inconclusive or controversial.
Basil Yamey has written some of the most important work on early modern
accounting. He refutes the argument by Werner Sombart and to a lesser extent
Max Weber that double-entry bookkeeping was essential in the emergence of ear
ly modern capitalism by enabling 'rational decision-making' through calculations
of profit, and return on investments.12 Eve Chiapello addresses Yamey, as one of
the most relevant authors in the reassessment of Sombart's double-entry book
keeping thesis, in which Yamey is described as: 'Sombart's most hostile commen
tator'.13 Yamey illustrates that early modern accounting records are characterised
by a significant diversity in form and technique, in an analysis of seven different,
primarily English, double-entry ledgers ranging from 1665 to 1774. In addition,
Yamey comments that the differences between these old ledgers and present-day
ledgers are most likely a result of differing requirements set by those who are
served by them.14
In more recent work, Yamey emphasised that before the 19th century, com
mercial accounting was highly diverse and not dictated by a strong regulatory
framework; early modern accounting practices were characterised by a state of
Accounting in the Dutch Transatlantic Slave Trade
9 Wai Fong Chua, Radical Developments in Accounting Thought. In: The Accounting Re
view, 61:4 (1986), 601-32, 606.
10 Chua, Radical Developments, 613.
11 Ahmed Belkaoui, Accounting and Language. In: Journal of Accounting Literature, 8:1 (1989),
281-292, 282.
12 Eve Chiapello, Accounting and the Birth of the Notion of Capitalism. In: Critical Perspectives
on Accounting, 18:1 (2007), 263-296, 268-269.
13 Chiapello, Accounting, 268.
14 Basil Yamey, Some Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Double-Entry Ledgers. In: The Ac
counting Review, 34:4 (1959), 534-46, 534.
