One of my favourite concepts that came up during many of the Political Economy courses I took is that of Monopolies of Knowledge. Before you get excited, it has nothing to do with being really, really good at the board game.
A Monopoly of knowledge is a system in place that serves to preserve the status and exclusivity of those who have undertaken the process of obtaining it, and therefore the power they hold over those who don’t have the knowledge. Early examples include the trend of only allowing priests or white men learn how to read. Today it’s still prevalent in careers such as medicine & law, where the abundant use of latin terms prevents those who can’t or don’t learn the terminology from fully participating.
Last night in class I learned another career which seems to rely on a monopoly of knowledge structure to preserve its status and power. Accounting. Holy crap. Plugging the numbers into the equations isn’t really that difficult. It’s all based on grade nine algebra.
Deciphering the language and presenting my work with that same language however, is going to take some practice. I may need flash cards. Or a decoder ring.
Because now I have n0tes at home that look something like this:
Unearned
Revenues{sneaky!} – When is an asset not an asset? When it’s a liability!
No wonder accountants have always come off as just this side of batshit crazy. You kindof have to be to think that actually makes sense.
yeah… just TRY to get your hands on their handbook too. I managed to sneak in a backdoor and download a bunch of the chapters, and I’ll be damned if I can understand any of it. I swear, if they made the documentation easier, it wouldn’t take so long to earn an accounting degree.
*grins just-this-side-of-batshit-crazily*
As a 5th-level CGA student, I actually have to agree with everything you and Sue have said. Especially egregious: try reading the Tax Act sometime. Actually, don’t 😉
And yeah, unearned revenues are especially sneaky…I just think of it as being on the hook to do the work (or return the cash), therefore a liability exists…
Oh it makes perfect sense to me “now” – but i haven’t crossed over far enough yet to let go of my long-standing personal definitions of debit and credit.
Yeah, I had the same problem…usually because our knowledge of debits and credits comes from personal banking. The bank says, “We credited your account with an additional deposit” because to THE BANK, our account is a liability, so an addition is a credit to *them*. But to US, our account is an asset, so the addition is actually a debit to *us*. Hence my original terminological confusion.
Wow, you’re right, this language really is obfuscating…I can only figure myself out half the time 🙂