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Habermas, Freud, Accountants: An Epidemic Of Self-Deception And/Or Public Abuse?, M. M. Day
Habermas, Freud, Accountants: An Epidemic Of Self-Deception And/Or Public Abuse?, M. M. Day
Faculty of Business - Accounting & Finance Working Papers
In this paper I focus on Habermasian therapeutic discourse, which, according to Habermas, is a prerequisite for transformation and emancipation. I describe Habermas' reconstruction of Freudian psychoanalysis, and subject it to critique by drawing on several works, including some feminist authors. In the second part of the paper, I draw parallels between the power/knowledge construct of psychoanalysis and a power/knowledge construct of financial accounting, with particular reference to tax-effect accounting. I conclude with a consideration of accountants as reproducers of self-deception and generators of public abuse.