Starting with the first "scientific" economists such as Cantillon (1755) and Quesnay (1758) and ending with Piketty (2019), this book explores the treatment of the concept of capital in the history of accounting and economic thought.
The work provides a rare juxtaposition of the reasoning, discourse and writings of accountants and economists. With regard to ‘capital’, this approach highlights the ongoing struggle between these "uncongenial twins" – as Kenneth Boulding put it – for primacy in analysing, and utilising, capitalism. But if they are certainly "uncongenial", the book also...

Whether classical, neoclassical or Marxist, economists have failed in their analyses of capitalism to take into account the underpinning systems of accounting. This book draws attention to this lacuna, focusing specifically on the concept of capital: a major concept that dominates all teaching and practice in both economics and management.

Humanitarian Ecological Economics and Accounting: Capitalism, Ecology and Democracy argues for the adoption of a CARE model: comprehensive accounting in respect of ecology.