The Making of Uniform Costing in a War Economy: the case of the 'Uniconti' Commission in Fascist Italy

The paper analyses the experience carried out by the Uniconti Commission in setting rules of uniform costing in Italy during the World War II (WWII). This initiative was promoted by the Italian Fascist government and the Confederazione dell’Industria (Industry Confederation) in 1941. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the process of setting the uniform costing rules and “why” and “how” they were designed, according to a Foucauldian perspective that allows the problematization of accounting as a complex phenomenon, whose emergence and functioning is linked to the context and dependent on the interplay of different influences. Starting from the aims inspired to the totalitarian ideology of the government that promoted the Commission, the analysis is grounded on archival primary sources and provides the perspective of the making of new accounting rules by the interplay among the participants acting in the process. This allows focusing the interaction between the domains of interests and of expectations - political-ideological, technical and economic - that the process of setting the uniform costing system in that context implied. The outcome of the Commission represented a compromise between the stances of the accounting academy, the interests of business representatives, the dominant ideology and the political targets. Thus, the paper provides insightful evidence of the complex interplay between knowledge, techniques, institutions and ideology in setting accounting rules in a totalitarian context, marked by a prevailing role of ideology and state in the regulation of economy