Chaos and comedy: The narrative of Samuel Turner III

The advent of World War I in Britain saw a politicisation of profit, heightened by pre-existing labour unrest, State intervention, industrial disruption and claims of profiteering. During this time, the prominent industrialist Sir Samuel Turner III (1878–1955) published two books on the role of business, and particularly profits, in society. As an example of contemporary media, we use these books to highlight how Turner conceptualised profits as representative of Britain's path to post-war success – a transition from darkness into light. We adopt narrative historiography and the genre of comedy to provide a framework for analysis. In doing so, we demonstrate how profit becomes a totalising and taken-for-granted concept representing both economic and social progress.


Introduction
Historiography is a feature of most, if not all, scholarly disciplines.In accounting research, historians consider the development and contingencies impacting practice and how accounting systems shape our understanding of organisations and society (Napier, 2009).In this article, we consider the relationship between labour and capital through the different conceptions of profit at a time of significant turmoil following the advent of World War I (WWI) in Britain.British manufacturing was also in decline and the contemporary views of a prominent British industrialist Sir Samuel Turner III (Turner) provide a window into the prevailing mutable understandings of profit.His perspectives are outlined in two books.The first, Eclipse or Empire?(1916, jointly authored with Dr HB Gray), and later From War to Work (1918) conveyed Turner's beliefs on how Britain could transition from economic and social chaos to return to its former status as a 'workshop of the world' through the leadership of the professional businessman as opposed to the emerging managerial capitalist in America (Gray and Turner, 1916: 2).
Turner's family were well-known British industrialists producing asbestos products (later Turner & Newall (T&N)); giving Turner the platform to contribute to contemporary ideas (Jeremy, 1995).This industrial empire that Turner was to later lead (1929-1944 1 ) commenced in 1856 as a cotton manufacturing concern by his grandfather, Sir Samuel Turner I.By the 1870s, his sons had created Turner Brothers, moving into the production of asbestos-based cloth (Turner & Newall Limited, 1970).A 'fabric that heat would not destroy, that damp would not rot, that time would not decay, and that acids would not bite' (The Manchester Guardian, 1924: 5).In 1916, a new company Turner Brothers Asbestos (TBA) 2 was established to produce a range of products for the war effort, creating 'the dynamic from which future profitable growth would flow' 3 (Turner  & Newall Limited, 1970: 3).
During this period cost accounting also 'came into the light' with the need for government controls over production during WWI (The Cost Accountant, in Loft, 1986: 141).The sudden absence of a national and global free market required new methods to accurately cost contracts and prevent profiteering.The emergence of principles of scientific management and uniform accounting systems from America provided an alternative to the 'supposed' lax management of British entrepreneurs.Further, the scale of production and the establishment of multiple business units brought changes to the organisational landscape with the introduction of middle and top management control (Chandler, 1977).It is from within this context, that we consider a businessman or industrialist's perspective as opposed to an accountant's perspective.
How a society perceives accounting is 'reflected in culture, in art, and in particular, literature' of the time (Evans, 2009: 170).These social artefacts, such as stories, diaries, gravestones and images (Evans and Fraser, 2012;McBride, 2022;Miley and Read, 2014) deliver an understanding of the practice and how certain concepts are diffused in society as 'taken-for-granted' norms.For example, accounting historians have adopted a narrative approach to investigate contemporaneous literature such as the role of the accountant in fiction to promote stereotypes (Czarniawska, 2012;Evans and Fraser, 2012); the commodification of the totality of life in the inflationary Weimer Republic (Evans, 2009); the changing conceptions of accounting and gender in the novels of Douglas Adams (Czarniawska, 2012); and the use of structured folk tales to reveal sense-making for accountants faced with new government policy (Morrell and Tuck, 2014).
Turner's books are neither complete works of fiction nor non-fictional accounts of extant business practices and accounting.Therefore, to frame our analysis we adopt the literary device of narrative historiography to bring a sense of order and a framework for analysis.A narrative is a chronicle endowed with a plot to connect various events and characters.Since these narratives are created at a point in time by individuals for a specific purpose, the historian can use them to find out about the past (Eiranen et al., 2022).As inherently subjective, narratives are infused with a particular sense-making structure or genre that transmits 'transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality' (White, 1987: 1).As narrative is more than a mere story it also orders chaos to make sense of confusing or conflictual circumstances (Booker, 2005).
The article begins with an overview of the industrial context and background of WWI in Britain and the Turner family.This is followed by an outline of narrative historiography and our adoption of a comedic plot to structure the analysis.We contribute to the accounting history literature in several ways.First, we provide an innovative method in accounting to interrogate historical evidence.Second, we extend the use of contemporaneous social media, such as books and pamphlets, to draw out understandings of capital and profit.Finally, we conclude by demonstrating how accounting concepts can be used rhetorically and become a taken-for-granted societal logic.

Background
In the following sections, we provide an overview of the context and some of the key features of pre-WWI Britain that influenced both contemporary ideas and Turner's views.

Early twentieth-century Britain
Early twentieth-century Britain was a prosperous and urban nation, with over 80 per cent of the population living in cities and towns.Britain had changed by around 1870 to become an industrial economy with large manufacturers employing 42 per cent of the population and comprising 40 per cent of production (Dintenfass, 1992).Despite this, it is estimated approximately one-third of the working class in cities and towns lived in poverty.'Almost three-quarters of British people were working class, engaged in industrial or manual labour' (Clapson, 2009: 10).Of interest is the concentration of the textile and clothing industry which accounted for 41 per cent of the labour force and 60 per cent of exports (Dintenfass, 1992).Given the prominence of manufacturing, a power struggle over the distribution of profits heightened between labour and capital (McIvor, 2003).
At the same time, Britain's place as a global industrial power was in decline.Dintenfass (1992) attributes this decline to the failure of British industrialists to adopt new developments in production techniques.In addition, Britain had been steadily consuming more and more manufactured goods and was becoming increasingly dependent on both exports and imports than its main international competitors (Tomlinson, 2003).Britain had lost its place as the 'Workshop of the World' (Dintenfass, 1992: 13).In 1900 its share of world industrial production was around 20 per cent.This proportion had fallen to around 14 per cent by 1913(Tomlinson, 2003)).In particular, the protectionist policies in foreign markets and the emergence of cheaper labour overseas saw the gradual collapse of the cotton export trade in Britain (Dintenfass, 1992).
The changing reliance on imports and exports raised questions about the Victorian legacy of free trade.Not surprisingly, 'tariff reform' had become an important political issue from the turn of the century continuing until well after WWI (Kirby, 2003;Williamson, 2003).Indeed, so contentious was tariff reform that it was seen as the chief reason for the scale of the Conservative 4 election defeat in 1906 and subsequent defeats in 1910 (Williamson, 2003).Tariff reform appealed to some as it offered protection to domestic agriculture and industry, and increased employment and wages, not to mention the promise of social reform from government revenue.However, opponents of tariff reform saw it as 'not only economically injurious but also socially, politically and morally offensive, by being relentlessly stereotyped as "protection" in the sense of advantages given to the vested interests of employers by means of taxes of the food of the masses' (Williamson, 2003: 7).While WWI brought massive disruption and partial tariff reform due to the extension of state power, laissez-faire did not end completely until the introduction of full protectionism in 1932 (Clapson, 2009;Williamson, 2003).
Another important feature in social and political life in the early 1900s was the women's movement.While the campaign to emancipate women had its genesis in the mid-nineteenth century, by 1900 it was becoming militant due to more sophisticated organisation (Ashworth, 2013).From 1905 a confrontational approach was adopted to attract media attention.By 1912 a militant group, known as the 'suffragettes', began to engage in 'terrorist acts against property such as mass window-breaking, setting fire to empty buildings and post boxes, pouring acid on golf courses and cutting telephone and telegraph wires' (Purvis and Holton, 2000: 3).While many historians believe the movement was a single issue for the right to vote, the broader campaign involved issues such as independence, access to education and greater access to fairer paid employment (Ashworth, 2013: Holton, 2001).It is against the backdrop of social and political disruption that British industry was under threat internally.
On the international front, it was also a time when the modern business enterprise of large corporations and oligopolies were replacing the traditional family business in America (Dintenfass, 1992).As the primary organisation driving the production and distribution of goods, these large entities were comprised of distinct operating units administered by salaried management or executives.This emerging class, managing on behalf of shareholders, introduced a new style of managerial capitalism whereby managers determined both long-term policy and short-term operations (Chandler, 1977).These professional managers sought growth and expansion through mass production and distribution in an effort to lower costs and increase productivity.This model came to dominate and change large sectors of the global economy (Chandler, 1977).In later years, British industry was forced to adapt through mergers and acquisitions, producing corporate giants and a form of managerial capitalism, anathema to the ideal of efficient market competition (Hannah, 2006;Richardson and Nicholls, 2011).

Capital and profit
Notions of capital and profit developed with the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern-day company.This was the era of solid modernity 5 where the power of business was manifest in 'hard' assets such as plant size, geographic location or the number of employees (Bauman, 2000).The company accounts produced were virtually free from regulation.There were limited standardised definitions or rules of disclosure (Edwards, 1989).Profit was considered transactionally, at its most basic level, revenue less expenses.However, different perspectives on what constituted profits were emerging.
[N]amely, what are true profits, in the economical sense such as can be distributed up to the hilt without any depletion of capital: what are legally divisible profits, that is, profits which the law has hitherto refrained from prohibiting the distribution of, for whatever reason; what may be regarded as divisible profits in the sense in which the term would be used by prudent men of business anxious to act fairly to all the parties concerned, and to preserve the business under their control from the consequences of all tendencies that can in reason be foreseen.(The Accountant, 1908: 741) Thus, the distribution of profits had an economic, legal and social (fair allocation) function, albeit often held in tension.
[T]he points of view of the economist, the lawyer, and the business man respectively are widely different, and in many respects quite irreconcilable.(The Accountant, 1908: 741) By WWI the industrial landscape had changed, and profiteering became a major concern.The growth in managerial capitalism over the previous few decades combined with unbridled profitmaking in many industries created public controversy, especially amidst claims of the large-scale use of 'secret reserves' (Arnold, 1998;McCartney and Arnold, 2012).For the supporters of a labour theory of value, only those profits that constituted a reward or compensation for risk were justifiable as a return to the businessman or capital.Any profit above this limit was in effect considered as wages available for distribution to labour (McCartney and Arnold, 2012).In this period of social disruption, the tensions between profit and capital were inextricably linked to labour.
Prior to WWI, technological advances and a reorganisation of the 'workshop' had resulted in changes to payment structures and a surge of strike action with wide labour unrest.During WW1 trade unions flourished and were able to enjoy considerable influence over industrial and social policy; however, management still prescribed labour rights and conditions in the individual workplaces (McIvor, 2003).Thus, any suggestion for a harmonious future of post-WWI Britain in terms of labour relations was made in the context of an increasingly unionised workforce and further advances in industry such as the adoption of the principles of 'scientific management'.
These social and political conditions provided the context for the industrial empire founded by the Turner family.

The Turner family
The cotton mills of Lancashire in northwest England were a prominent feature of the landscape due in part to the availability of waterpower and a large urban workforce.As local manufacturers, the Turner family 'played an important part in the industrial development and the public life of Rochdale for almost a hundred years' (The Manchester Guardian, 1936: 10).As part of the 'Victorian churchgoing business dynasty' (The Observer, 1923: 6), the Turner family took it as their responsibility to accumulate wealth and capital consistent with the Protestant ethic of the United Methodist Free Church (Jeremy, 1995).Weber famously describes this social ethic of Protestantism and one's duty or vocation to work well and in a 'methodical manner' as the 'spark' of modern-day capitalism (Kininmonth, 2016(Kininmonth, : 1238)).
While the family was infused with the ideals of the 'free trade liberal traditions' of the period, Turner is somewhat conflicted between free trade and protectionism through State intervention and created 'a stir amongst Lancashire commercial men' when he publicly converted from Free Trade to Tariff Reform during WW1 (The Observer, 1923: 6).Proponents of tariff reform believed that protectionist policies would assist British manufacturing (Marrison, 1983).
the religion of laissez-faire … [is a] doctrine [that] ultimately spells death to a nation.True liberty comes from relationship of State benefits and [the] best powers and ungrudging obedience … in return from individuals.(Gray and Turner, 1916: 25) Turner provides a classic example of the industrial capitalist that prevailed at the beginning of the twentieth century.Industry was dominated by an upper class with private ownership of the business transferred through family inheritance.As community leaders, the industrialists used capital returns philanthropically to improve the community and provide benefits for local workers (Duménil and Lévy, 2018).
Turner, like most industrialists of the time, began his career in the family business in 1896 (The Manchester Guardian, 1945), became an executive director of T&N when it was formed and assumed the role of chairman in 1929 until his retirement in 1944.Turner was educated in 'England, Germany, and Switzerland' (The Manchester Guardian, 1955: 2;Gray and Turner, 1916).While originally trained as a mechanic (The Manchester Guardian, 1914: 7), Turner was recognised as 'a keen student of academic science' (The Observer, 1923: 6).Turner's prominence in Lancashire continued and he was bestowed with several awards recognising his contribution to the community.His profile was such that he held the title of High Sherriff of Lancashire in 1930 (an honour dating back to 1154), along with being granted freedom of the Borough in 1937, and he was subsequently knighted in 1938 (The Manchester Guardian, 1936;The Manchester Guardian, 1955).In 1934, he was elected to the Council at The University of Manchester and subsequently conferred with an honorary Doctor of Laws in 1940(The Manchester Guardian, 1940).
While his family donated large sums of money to local church causes, Turner's belief in education directed much of his high-profile philanthropy.Turner (1918: 108) refers to the post-WWI transition for Britain as a '[p]eace offensive' where the task of the industrialist is to efficiently implement the State's plan for reconstruction.Therefore, as an advocate of private business and 'the professional businessman', he encouraged the State to provide universal education and sponsor the development of trade schools (Turner, 1918).In 1918, he and five other business leaders financially supported the Principal of the Manchester Municipal School of Technology 6 to establish the Department of Industrial Administration to 'help train industry's future leaders' (Keeble, 1992: 110-112).In 1932 Turner donated the family home, Denehurst Park to the citizens of Rochdale (The Manchester Guardian, 1955) and funded the dental school and dental hospital at Manchester University in 1937 at a cost of £100,000 (The Manchester Guardian, 1938: 12).He also endowed the town of Rochdale with 'as many nursery schools as the town requires' (The Manchester Guardian, 1937: 8).
In addition to the two books, Turner was a popular dinner speaker and the author of several articles and pamphlets 7 (Turner, 1918).The values he conveyed were from his position as an influential industrialist and leader, therefore his legacy was imbued in the local culture as well as the industry that contributed to the defence of the nation.The local press noted on his retirement that his 'vision, courage and leadership are largely responsible for [the] eminently satisfactory position' of his family's listed company, T&N (The Manchester Guardian, 1945: 7).
The respect that Turner and his family enjoyed from the workforce and the people of Rochdale was seemingly a major support for their industrial aspirations, notwithstanding the changed expectations of workers returning from the war.At a national level, the power struggles between capital and labour in the late nineteenth through to twentieth-century industrial Britain, along with the persistence of relative economic decline and the emergence of the American-style managerial capitalism, form the backdrop to Turner's narrative of Britain returning to its status as the workshop of the world.

Narrative historiography
Narrative historiography focuses on and conceptualises the experiences of past agents through storytelling as a ubiquitous aspect of human history (Czarniawska-Joerges, 2004).This link is expressed in literature and myth as 'systems of meaning-production' and a distillation of the experiences of ' people, a group, a culture' (White, 1984: 21).To undertake our analysis of Turner's books, we adopt White's (1973;1984;1987;1999) approach to narrative historiography as emplotted storytelling.
In telling a story, the historian necessarily reveals a plot.This 'plot' symbolizes events by mediating between their status as existence 'within time' and their status as indicators of the 'historicality' in which these events participate.(White, 1984: 28-29) Booker (2005) argues that all stories adhere to one of the basic plots.While the events and characters may be very different, plots convey a narrative meaning across both time and space that is beyond the story.Thus, understanding meaning through emplotment and linguistic devices reveals an underlying 'truth' or 'reality' of pervasive ideologies or worldviews.
Fictional works may tell truth about economic realities; while apparently factual works on economic realities may be infiltrated by fiction, so that they can offer covert myths and fantasies, or disguised dramas with heroes and villains.(Watts, 1990: 3) A narrative analysis requires researchers to reveal a particular plot consistent with the narrative or style of the author.White (1999) confines narrative plots to the four Aristotelian archetypes: romance, tragedy, irony and comedy and their associated rhetorical tropes of metaphor, metonymy, irony or synecdoche.The narrative in From War to Work bears the hallmarks of comedy.Therefore, to establish meaning and sensemaking claims we framed our analysis using the comedic plot and its associated rhetorical trope, synecdoche.The elements of comedy include three distinct phases.First, a 'world' under a shadow of confusion and uncertaintya period of chaos.Second, a period of transition where 'obstructing characters or the comics' oppose heroic characters (Czarniawska-Joerges, 2004: 21).Finally, the recognition of an opportunity for change leads to a resolution (Booker, 2005).
In comedy there is hope for the heroes in a temporary triumph over darkness.Comedy offers temporary reconciliation or harmony.(Boje, 2001: 109) While there may be 'funny' episodes arising from confusion, the comedic genre is a confused or chaotic state that culminates in a happy ending through the recognition or discovery of something that transforms a situation (Booker, 2005).Aristotle refers to the final stage of comedy as anagnorisis, or the moment when order is restored, and society has moved from 'ignorance to knowledge … from darkness to light' (Booker, 2005: 117).
According to White (1999), synecdoche is a literary device peculiar to comedic plots that integrates meaning through a simple representation of complex concepts and ideas.Synecdoche exposes the 'truth claims' inherent in representation since it presupposes some kind of correspondence between the perception of, and the thing perceived, becoming the 'reality' (Burke, 1941: 421).Thus, the explanatory power of this rhetorical trope is in its ability to recognise a phenomenon by substituting one of its defining attributes.Synecdoche uses; [t]he part for the whole, whole for the part, container for the contained, sign for the thing signified, material for the thing made, cause for effect, effect for cause, genus for species, species for genus, etc.All such conversions imply an integral relationship, a relationship of convertibility, between the two terms.(Burke, 1941: 426) As a resonance 8 trope, this substitution makes meanings visible and reinforces certain paradigms (Oswick et al., 2004).For example, a band-aid represents all sticking plasters; a lion may be referred to as cat; wheels for a car; or a head count for the number in a given population.Since we were interested in the role of 'profit' as a representation of social and economic progress, synecdoche was the most appropriate trope for analysis.
The research approach involved reading both books written by Turner.Eclipse or Empire?(1916) provided contextual and corroborating evidence since joint authorship made it difficult to attribute ideas directly to Turner.We 9 then performed a close reading of From War to Work (1918).Close reading is a form of rhetorical analysis that has the primary objective of unpacking the text to reveal how the specific text 'works' (Jasinski, 2001).This method provides 'a way of understanding the discursive mechanisms through which ideologies do their cultural and political work' (Jasinski, 2001: 95).It is both strict and minute, but nevertheless allows the text to make broader connections and claims when structured within a framework of emplotment.
Meaning and effect are produced, not by the text as a static entity, but by the progressive interaction of the audience with the temporal flow of ideational, dispositional, stylistic, and syntactical elements in the discourse.Each word, each phrase, each sentence conditions the response of the audience to each succeeding word, phrase, and sentence.(Lucas, 1988: 249) In addition, close reading is used to identify thematic elements (Leoni, 2021;Schur, 1998).The authors independently developed thematic notes from the close reading and framed them around the elements of the comedic plot.We then cooperatively discussed our results.Close reading is an interpretive method, and while producing useful insights, it is not without limitations.Close readers contextualise and interpret snippets of the entire text.Other snippets could lead to other conclusions, particularly due to the complexity of social phenomenon and the historical nature of the text (Amernic and Craig, 2017).To ameliorate these limitations, we have structured it according to the three stages of a comedic narrative.

The Turner books
The Turner books include material originally distributed in the form of pamphlets, 10 dinner speeches and newspaper articles.Pamphlets were the social media of the day, communicating ideas quickly to a wide audience and provided a foundation for 'the influential moral and political communities that constitute[d] a "public sphere" of popular public opinion' (Raymond, 2006: 26). 11The first book, Eclipse or Empire (with H. Gray) was published in 1916 drawing on the collective experiences of wide travel 'in Europe, America and the Overseas Dominions, coupled with some public service on the part of the one, and ramified business experience on the part of the other' (Gray and Turner, 1916: 3).The authors draw on these experiences 'to visualise the industrial conditions prevailing in Great Britain and in other countries respectively' (Gray and Turner, 1916: 3).Given the prominence of the Turner family through its social and economic networks, Eclipse or Empire articulates these context-bound views of a Britain struggling to drag 'hitherto partly unemployed resources, industrial and commercial from the "darkness" of war to the "light"' of a post-war world (Gray and Turner, 1916: 10).
Eclipse or Empire runs to 315 pages and is organised in three parts.Part I is seven chapters (69 pages).In the first three chapters, the authors provide their polemic attack on the current state of Britain in respect of industry, business, state intervention and particularly education.Profitability and industrial success during wartime Britain were contentious topics -'the material and even vulgar side of national life with which the soul of the nation might be deemed to have no concern' (Gray and Turner, 1916: 3).
This context is provided to spur on the reforms outlined in the following chapters.As Gray and Turner (1916: 4) state: the root-cause of all that makes for decay, warping political foresight, throttling the Civil Service with infinite folds of red tape, fossilizing High Command, narrowing the purview of social life in all grades, and shrivelling industrial fruitfulness in employer and employed alike, is to be found in the lack (in spite of all that has been attempted hitherto) of a proper system of national education for all classes in the land from the highest to the lowest.
The remainder of Part I (four chapters) is devoted to outlining the necessary reforms to bring the British education system, including trade schools and universities to world standard.
In Part II (57 pages) Gray and Turner turn their attention to business and industry as the key driver for future economic and social prosperity.Gray and Turner (1916: 119) support their 'Vision of Empire' with a series of axioms, principles and even economic laws.These are couched in terms of defending the wealth accumulated by the businessman as also bringing benefits to the community.
The wealth accumulated by the man who makes business his life-work and thereby becomes a creator is a mere fraction of what that work has saved for the community at large.(1916: 73) Additionally, the authors put their case for a scientific approach to research and education, to make better use of the resources of the Empire.This includes decrying the practices and laws regarding restrictions on output and free trade.Part II concludes with 'The Appeal' to take the opportunities WWI has presented and change both the mindset and policy in Britain.
If we are to rise to the greatness of our opportunities, some remedies must be applied, and those promptly, to the weak places exposed in these pages.(Gray and Turner, 1916: 126) Part III is not organised as chapters but as a 'Glossary'.It is larger than the rest of the book combined at 179 pages.The Glossary delivers a comprehensive set of 'facts' that, demonstrate the truth of this postulate: That during the last 20-40 years most of the inventions, new ideas and developments, have been given to the world by countries other than our own; furthermore, that their value has been more quickly appreciated and put to practical use in foreign lands.(Gray and Turner, 1916: 128) The preamble for Part III argues the validity of these facts, along with the causes and consequences.It covers advances in industries from engineering to medicine including large sections on domestic and social products such as carpet sweepers and toys.Overall, Part III concludes that industrial advancement results from innovation and scientific management seen in the more entrepreneurial market-driven jurisdictions such as America and Germany.
The second book From War to Work is a clear 'call to arms' to use the 'conscious aim' akin to WWI patriotic ideals, to promote industrial expansion and production (Turner, 1918: 9).The dominant theme in From War to Work is a vigorous and impassioned defence of industrial capital and the right of companies and individuals to personally profit from investment.This argument rests on grandiloquent rhetoric, for example, Turner (1918,15) states there is 'no greater and nobler work than to create things, which is the function of industry'.Given the contemporaneous concerns of WW1, Turner conflates industrial production with 'the great offensive of peace' (Turner, 1918: 16) or 'peace offensive'.
From War to Work is 109 pages organised into 14 chapters.The sentiments in the book are along similar lines to Eclipse or Empire, but with a narrowed focus on industry, production and profit.In the first two chapters the reasons for writing the book as well as the problems with industry and production are expressed.Turner argues that the 'conscious aim', similar to the religious ideal of promoting a common purpose through industrious and methodical work, was being stifled by several adversarial groups including labour and capital, unions and employers, men and women.Turner saw an opportunity to harness wartime nationalism and extend that motivation toward industry beyond WWI.
Following on from the metaphor of a 'peace offensive', Turner uses the next three chapters to lay out how this can be achieved, in both theory and practice.The next chapter summarises the 'facts' of the productivity situation using pre-war examples to demonstrate how Britain was lagging behind other countries, particularly America and Germany, and yet paying more for goods and services and less in wages.This is followed by an entire chapter suggesting that both state and community support for restriction of output on consumer goods has 'hitherto been [one of] the worst enemies to progress' (Turner, 1918: 62).Turner then moves on to further press home his point with chapters on how production and consumption can benefit if output is not restricted.
The final chapters reinforce the central thesis of a 'peace offensive', including the application of the businessman's knowledge and a withdrawal of state intervention in business, and concluding that capitalists, not profiteers, are the creators of prosperity.
Turner's books were advertised widely in Britain and beyond.According to the publishers of Eclipse or Empire?-'this is the most talked of book of our time' (Nisbet & Co, 1916b: 3) and 'a book of great powerthe most constructive, interesting and vital book we have ever published' (Nisbet & Co, 1916a: 3).Similarly, From War to Work was widely promoted, for example the Times Literary Supplement claims it was an: ordered development in national industry and scientific production; for a willing reply to the new demands and conditions of both employers and employed; and especially for the recognition that 'profits' are necessary and beneficial and that it is only the capitalistic system that can lead us to the highest degree of development in the future.(Macdonell, 1918: 302) Therefore, we consider these books to constitute a source of historical evidence of the zeitgeist of WWI Britain.

The business manthe comedic hero
In the following sections, we outline the three distinct phases of comedic plot in From War to Work beginning with a period of chaos and confusion, followed by the transition period where the competing tensions between the hero and obstructing characters are described.Finally, we conclude with a happy ending where labour and capital reach a state of harmony through profit.

Chaos and confusion
WW1 is described by Turner in terms such as the 'horrors of war ' (1918: 10), the 'struggle for animal existence ' (1918: 37) and an 'extortionate toll of effort and time ' (1918: 38).Additionally, Turner frequently warns of the problems associated with socialism, using cautionary tales of the industrial demise in Russia following the Communist Revolution in 1917.
The low production of Russia kept the vast masses of her people in the most miserable poverty, while the Americans' high production secured to the American worker a plenty undreamt of by his Russian comrade.(Turner, 1918: 77) Further, Turner addresses another fundamental cause of chaos and confusionthe mutual antipathy between labour and capital.The relationship is characterised as warlike -'[b]etween Labour and Capital, a condition bordering upon anarchy existed' (Turner, 1918: 12).
So long as the worker believes that the employer's hand is in his, the worker's pocket, it is a sure waste of time to seek a ground of agreement between them.It would be just as reasonable to propose a working arrangement between householders and burglars.Clearly, no such agreement is possible…'.(Turner, 1918: 3) Turner (1918: 7) implores that it is 'from [this] disorder… that the evils [of low productivity and resistance to innovation and change] have proceeded'.Expressing a tone of exasperation, Turner (1918: 58) laments that: [w]hat should we have thought of our ancestors had they finally refused the plough, the reaper, the wheel, the locomotive, the loom, the steamship?… The process is not ended.It is still going on.We are refusing today inventions which will make the better, richer world of the future, as our fathers in the past struggled against the inventions on which our present civilisation is built.The women's movement and demands for equity of access to wages and education created a different form of conflict.Turner (1918: 13) believed that women have lost their 'conscious aim' in life from the 'loss of the sense of dignity which comes from valuable service done' in homemaking tasks as 'essential social work '.But what the real cause of the unnatural war between man and woman in this country?The main reason was simply that our society, allowed to develop anyhow, had left its women, or at any rate many of them, with no adequate place in its processes.(Turner, 1918: 12) Turner (1918: 12) even goes as far as characterising the tensions as a 'civil war between the men and women of our country'.Turner characterises the internal conflicts as destroying British society, suggesting by way of a parable, 'thirsty men may quarrel over a drink, but it is the height of absurdity for them to destroy the well in the process ' (1918: 60).Thus, the lines of conflict amid chaos and confusion are drawn between the heroes of innovation, improvement and change and several obstructing characters.

The heroes and obstructing characters
The hero of the comedic plot is the businessman who, through intellectual deftness and his 'Directing Ability ' (1918: 89), is essential for both social and economic development.Business, Turner argues, had created a substantially superior world.Prior to the rise of industry, people had no fireplaces with chimneys to lead away the smoke, no body linen, no soap, no socks, no forks, no coffee, tea, tobacco, sugar, no baths.In short, they lived under most unhealthy and uncomfortable conditions.(Turner, 1918: 54) For Turner (1918: 89) the innovativeness of profitable industry 'saved the world'.Capital is the 'wealth accumulated by the man who makes business his life-work and thereby becomes a creator' and 'the chief benefactor of his kind' (Gray and Turner, 1916: 75).'What better or nobler thing than to be a business man' (Gray and Turner, 1916: 79).Thus, the businessman is an enlightened mutually altruistic figure, seeing 'clearly that the measure of his success is almost directly in proportion to the degree of opportunity his operations create for others' (Turner, 1918: 98).
To thwart the hero's endeavours, Turner identifies several 'hopelessly inefficient' obstructing characters or 'comics' including the political left, labour and trade unions, and the State (Turner, 1918: 78).The Left represents the ideals of socialism that, by 'grudging the businessman his profit, would incidentally have prevented all the other benefits … reaching the vast mass of humanity' (Turner, 1918: 85).Turner refers to this resistance as 'the Great Refusal' (1918: 56)a conflict that has occurred only because 'we cannot immediately agree how to divide the results of the increased product of industry' (Turner, 1918: 60).In a combative tone, Turner (1918: 63) argues that the idea that 'an increase in [the] individual output must inevitably lead to over-production and unemployment … is utterly false, and unless our people can be convinced of its falsehood, I see very little hope for our industrial future '. Turner (1918: 2-3) opines that 'there appears to me to be no hope of harmony between Labour and Capital until both can be persuaded to approach their problems from an entirely new point of view '. Turner (1918: 61) identifies those who 'cling to obsolete methods' and refuse 'to recognise new conditions and new demands' as being just as much to blame as 'the worker who declines to use new machinery'.For Turner, labour and its representative organisations stifle innovation.
A theory of restricted production was prevalent at the time of Turner's writing, creating an obstacle for both increased mechanisation and labour relations.'[P]overty and misery are the result, because the theory of restricted output is false, and the facts prove its falsehood' (Turner, 1918: 64).Further he argues '[t]he nation as a whole should accept the policy of high and scientific production as its "conscious aim"' (Turner, 1918: 98).'It is difficult, ' Turner (1918: 76) continues, 'for a man to take long views when his immediate circumstances appear an injustice to him … to attempt to cure low wages by reducing production … is from the workers' point of view the most suicidal folly'.'Why cannot Capitalist and Trade Unionist, Socialist and all would-be reformers agree?' (Turner, 1918: 60).
The final obstructing character is the State.In the early stages of WWI, the British Government had a policy of little interference in the domestic economy, basically, it left the market to operate freely.However, public concerns regarding 'profiteering' led the Government to secure a deal between industrial capital and organised labour that, in return for wage restraint, an excess profits duty would be levied 12 (Arnold, 2014).This led to the 'politicisation of the "profit" concept' and 'began the transition towards a "total war economy" in which, by 1918, the State would be controlling more than two-thirds of the economy' (Arnold, 2014: 61-2).To counter this, Turner advocates for a withdrawal of the State from industry.He suggests when industry is nationalised it becomes inefficient because 'incompetent officials may continue managing public undertakings because no yearly balance sheet discloses their ineptitude' (Turner, 1918: 78).For Turner 'no Government can give the people the prosperity promised.No politicians and no government official can recreate our industry' (Turner, 1918: 103).Turner questions the ability of the State post-WWI to build unity of purposehis conscious aimfor '[w]hen men by the million do not know what they are about, is it strange that the State is riven with internecine strife and disorder?' (Turner, 1918: 2).
The comedic plot culminates in an appeal for a happy ending or transformation from the recognition that the efforts of labour, undirected, are insufficient to create wealth and the economic and social benefits that profits produce.

The happy ending
In comedy, the happy ending occurs through the recognition or discovery of something that transforms chaos into a harmonious state.For Turner, this harmonious state exists when the businessman and his willing workforce cooperatively pursue profits.In other words, certain conceptions of profit will align the interests of labour and capital rather than State intervention in domestic production leading to successful post-WWI reconstruction.
If we are to rise to the greatest of our opportunities, some remedies must be applied, and those promptly, to the weak places exposed in these pages.(Turner, 1918: 100) In our analysis, Turner's various representations of profit, and their relationship with capital and labour, represent efficient industrial economic activity.The recognition of Turner's 'solution'profit as representation of economic (and social) successis the basis on which the transition and return of Britain to being the workshop of the world can occur.
It is in this context that Turner constructs profit as integrative to the aims of the businessman, worker and society.In the comedic genre, synecdoche integrates by substituting an attribute for the whole.Profit is the holy grail for the hero and the catalyst for harmonious relationships between capital and labour, as well as the social, industrial and economic success Turner aspires to as Britain moves from darkness into light.
[T]he instrument which has very largely contributed to this immense advance [general prosperity] has been the hope of profit, or prospective reward.… The term in its widest application includes interest, salaries, wages, and the countless financial benefits, direct and indirect, of enterprise.(Turner, 1918: 81) While Turner's understanding of profit is totalising, we identify three nuanced representations in From War to Work: democratic or social profits; production profits; and investment profit.These are highlighted in Turner's central thesis that the path to prosperity can only be achieved through high production and consumption with increased business profits being a mere by-product.Ford's production in America is an oft-cited example of an aspirational capitalist production model that includes a social benefit -'Ford would not have become a millionaire, but then there would have been no motor car' (Turner, 1918: 84-85).
Profits in the widest sense of the term go mainly to the Community, to Directing Ability, to Invention, and to Labour, the part falling to Capital being quite a small proportion of the total.(Turner, 1918: 89) In Turner's Britain, the relationship between capital and labour was traditionally one of a negotiated alliance between owner and worker (Duménil and Lévy, 2018).This strategic coalition was evident in the development of 'democratic management' styles and the establishment of Whitley Councils where management and workers met to discuss issues 'from the point of view of those engaged in it, as far as this is consonant with the general interest of the community' (Middlemas in Loft, 1986: 148).This extended to worker involvement in setting just wages and conditions along with the benefits of 'industrial efficiency… [that brings] down the prices of commodities till they are in reach of the workers themselves' (Turner, 1918: 72).Turner maintains that the path to economic and social progress rests upon a harmonious relationship between labour and capital to produce 'democratic profit' (Turner, 1918: 81).According to Turner, capital return is the democratic profit allocated to the businessman after the community and labour have benefited.His defence of capital returning a profit is consistently argued as a relatively small proportion compared to the social benefits achieved.'Capital, according to the demand for it, commands a more or less modest rate of interest, which if unduly reduced could only have disastrous effects' (Turner, 1918: 89).
In terms of production profits, the alignment between capital and labour is one opportunity for reward through industrial activity for risking capital.
Civilisation has so far been unable to devise any other means to achieve this end [create wealth] than the reward (in the form of profits) of those who create things.The hope of profits tempts them to go to work and try.(Turner, 1918: 79) While in this case profit is distinct from wages, it is nonetheless inextricably linked with production.Turner uses the example of Ford in the US to appeal to the workers not to restrict production.He argues that increasing production lifts wages and lowers prices.'[H]igh wages and low [sales] prices must clearly go together' (Turner,1918: 69).Further he asserts that 'the development of production means life and not death to a people; and that profits are a condition of this life' (Turner, 1918: 97).'[T]he development of production profits have played a part of supreme importance.It is the hope of material reward in the shape of profits or wages' (Turner, 1918: 77-8).Further, [p]rofits are essential to the process of production only for the same reason that sunshine is essential to the life of the garden… Without the prospect of profit there would be neither industry nor flowers… Then why discourage the builders [of profits]?(Turner, 1918: 14) The reason, and the only reason, for the existence of profits in industry is that it will not work without them.Industry without profits, in the present temper of humanity, would be as barren as a garden without sun.(Turner, 1918: 85) According to Turner, the worker would be denied the opportunity to earn wages without the businessman and industrial success.Rising prices and low wages led many to believe that capitalists, such as Turner's family, were 'growing rich as others suffered' (Arnold, 1998: 65).Turner provides a counterargument.
The reward of capital does not, in fact, average 10 per cent.Taking 100 concerns haphazard in the Cotton industry of Great Britain, I find that the 'profits' averaged 5¼ per cent, for the twenty years ending 1918. (Turner, 1918: 88) Thus, Turner's concept of production profits is as a 'fair' capital return allocated to the businessman for providing the opportunity to workers to contribute to industry and receive wages.
Turner's final conception of profit is a return to the businessman, consistent with the idea of an investment loan.
Confusion of thought often arises in concluding that profits for the most part go to Capital.They do not.Capital, according to the demand for it, commands a more or less modest fixed rate of interest, which if unduly reduced could only have disastrous effects, for Capital is only another name for Savings.(Turner, 1918: 89) In this case, capital return is the profit allocated as a reward for not only investment but the 'Directing Ability' of the businessman (Turner, 1918: 89).Turner reminds his audience that, 'the total earnings of Capital, Invention, Directing Ability [of the businessman] and Labour do not equal the share of such earnings falling to Labour' (Turner, 1918: 20).In other words, the businessman adds surplus value, reaping the benefits of endeavour and ingenuity, without compromising the benefits to labour.Only by binding the interests of labour to the interests of the businessman will the economy and society advance towards successful post-WW1 reconstruction.
[T]he truth is … not that labour creates all wealth, but that directing ability and invention, coupled with the intelligent use of capital, create all that part of wealth which exceeds the barest animal subsistence.Labour unassisted and undirected by intelligence has never been able, under the most favourable conditions, to win more than the wherewithal for a simple primitive existence.(Turner, 1918: 19) The businessman, according to Turner, is 'one of the greatest benefactors to mankind the world has ever seen' (Turner, 1918: 82) and 'it is certain that the greater the number of active capitalists in a country, the greater its general prosperity' (Turner, 1918: 88).Thus, profit as capital return integrates 'to the full extent the powers of man, of management, and of machinery: by the application… of brains to the problems of production' (Turner, 1918: 26).
The underlying emphasis of From War to Work is an impassioned plea to commute smoothly from the unhappy chaos of war to post-war success.Against a backdrop of a rise in a disgruntled organised workforce, a number of labour disputes, profiteering and State intervention, Turner seeks to persuade Britain of the necessity of the businessman and profit for a happy and stable society.Profit is the persuasive rhetoric, a logic of capital borne out of a comedic plot of transitioning from darkness to light.As a synecdoche, profit integrates the economic and social benefits of capital by mobilising the businessman as the conduit for Britain's 'peace offensive'.Turner provides three subtly different arguments outlining the relationship between labour and capital to justify profit as the return or reward to the businessman as owner and capitalist.

Concluding comments
Historiographic studies introduce an interpretive frame to transcend mere descriptions of the past.In this article we have adopted narrative historiography to understand the conceptualisation of profit as the harmonising device to move Britain from darkness to light, from chaos to order, from war to work.In contrast to an accountant's perspective at the time where the profit calculation was a technical process with the objective of capital maintenance, Turner's profit came to represent everything from business success to social progress.
Narrative plots overcome the limitations of historical relativism.According to Booker (2005), stories are confined to a handful of plots or basic patterns, often discriminated by a happy or unhappy ending.Stories from a particular era may be outwardly different but underlying the story are similar plots across time.The comedic plot has allowed us to use Turner's books not as a description of historical events, but as evidence of the timeless story of capital as the hero and saviour from social disruption.The synecdoche of profit represents the relationship of labour and capital working together, allowing economic and social success.Historical narratives from non-accountants provide nuanced understandings of how accounting concepts are employed rhetorically.Future studies could use White's (1973) approach as a framework for analysis to provide a more holistic perspective on accounting's role in society.
Drawing on the emerging accounting literature using fiction and other non-traditional accounts (e.g.Czarniawska, 2012;Evans, 2009;Evans and Fraser, 2012;McBride, 2022;Miley and Read, 2014), we see future studies could consider calculative practices, the mobilisation of accounting concepts or the role of management in constructing meaning using contemporaneous social media.In particular, pamphlets and dinner speeches convey a continuous and sustained narrative of the zeitgeist of the time.Just as more traditional studies use books of account as evidence, so too can the social media of the day convey meaning that resonates today.As a compilation of public rhetoric, Turner's books were published when managerial capitalism was gaining traction as an alternative to the industrial capitalism of Turner's family.With the rise of managerial capitalism in America, the emergence of a new class of managers meant a change in allegiances and a new way of thinking about profits (Duménil and Lévy, 2018).By 1920, Britain had taken up the slack in its transition to a corporate economy with the concentration of manufacturing firms replacing the many family-held enterprises (Dintenfass, 1992).So too, Turner's family business, in a series of mergers and acquisitions, became the industrial giant T&N.
12. Excess profits duty was levied for seven accounting years from August 1914 at an average rate of 63 per cent (Arnold, 2014).