Accounting, ethics and human existence: Lightly unbearable, heavily kitsch

This paper offers a critical examination of the interrelationship between accounting, ethics, and the question of the meaning of human existence. Starting with a critique of the approach, data and method in Everett & Tremblay (2014), I broadly consider how different approaches to ethics and morality within capitalist markets play out. Drawing on the work of Milan Kundera, and briefly considering perspectives on the WorldCom fraud, I consider how the themes of lightness, weight, and kitsch are emblematic of many approaches to ethics within accounting.