The Sum of the Satisfactions by Duncan McDowall - Book Report/Review Example

Book review - The Sum of the Satisfactions by Duncan McDowall The essay aims to analyze and critically evaluate the book “The Sum of the satisfactions – Canada in the Age of National Accounting” written by “Duncan McDowall” in 2008. Duncan McDowall is a National Business Book award winning historian. He is professor of history at Carleton University and uses to frequently write articles in different prominent financial magazines, newspapers and journals. He has written another book entitled “The Light: Brazilian Traction, Light and Power Company Limited, 1899–1945” that won him the national business book award. The book “the sum of the satisfactions” has been translated in French also. In this book, he has made a tremendous effort to trace the journey of the development of the Canadian National accounting system (Safarian, p1). The following essay first summarizes the book to present a concise overview of its contents and then analyzes the accuracy and authenticity of the facts, clarity of the arguments and effectiveness of the message that the author has conveyed in the book. Duncan McDowall was commissioned by the National Accounts Advisory Committee to write a book about the history of Canadian national accounting system after conducting detailed research on this topic (Safarian, p2). He has conducted an extensive historical research to cover all the important aspects and features of the development of the national accounting system and the outcome of this research are presented in form of this book. He also did the interviews of some notable accountants and included the acquired facts in the book that make the book more valuable, lively, interesting and authentic because these interviews allow feeling the issue more closely. The book is an appreciation to the Canadian statisticians. The author believes that the Canadian statisticians have performed an outstanding role in creating an economically stable society having increased national wealth. The author continues with the approach of the Nobel laureate Paul Samuelsson regarding the Canadian national accounting and insists that the Canadian statisticians have played prominent role in positioning the national accounting as the great invention of the twentieth century. He thoroughly reviews the history of development of accounting standards in the country and presents the fact, figures and analysis of different issues in the book. The book expresses the desires of the Canadian accountants to move beyond the traditional system and to invent a comprehensive accounting system for the country. There are several constraints that were faced by these accountants and the author has discusses these problems and limitations in detailed manner. The book covers the economic progression of the country; starting from the ravage of depression to the time after the war and focuses on the efforts of Canadian government to restructure the economy and financial system on sound bases. The author takes the readers with him to trace the way towards the development process of the Canadian national accounting system and introduces them with different development occurred during different times and also keep on informing about the role and contributions of different economists, statisticians, organizations and authorities in the development process of the accounts system (Safarian, p2). The wide range of information is well organized in the book in different sections. In each of the sections, the author has attempted to cover an era of accounting system evolution process and describes the major developments occurred during that time period and also unfold some of the problems and constraints that the statisticians faced during the process of the development of national accounting system. In the introduction, the author provides an understanding to the context in which the book has been written. He presented the philosophy of connection between the statistics to the human lives and also explains the significance of a sound accounting system for economic and social stability of the countries. The introduction is followed by six part, an epilogue, notes and index. In all the parts, the author focuses on a particular time span, discusses the development, problems and pitfalls faced by the statisticians during that time and then move towards the next part to describe the development and problems of another time period. The book discusses the historical perspective of the development of the accounting system in Canada and explains how different approaches were being adopted at different times and what were the impact of these approaches upon the overall economy and financial ideology of the society. The author starts explaining the trend of treating and formulating the economic policies from the end of the seventeenth and middle of the eighteenth century. He pointed out the efforts of William Petty and Francois Quesnay aims to shape the economic policy structures. He specifically insists that the Dominion Bureau of Statistics was established by the authorities so that they can perpetuate the census. The bureau worked for updating the wealth and national income data and also conducted several studies related with the agriculture and industrial sector. In the first chapter, McDowall pointed out the unsatisfying performance of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics and reveals that the establishment of the national Bureau of Economic Research in 1920 was a much better and beneficial move for the United States. Later in 1930, there was popularity and widely acceptance of the economic policies of Simon Kuznets that refer towards the development of a production driven model of national income. McDowall explains the significance of the Keynes general theory for the national accounting system and observes that this theory assisted in analyzing the performance of different economic variables like consumption, investment and government during the great depression. At the time of war also, the economic system witnessed the benefits of this theory that help in the planning of the post war employment opportunities and other important features of the national economic system. The second chapter of the book provides information about the establishment of the first credible estimates of the national income that was produced in 1941 by James Meade and Richard Stone. These estimates were also very helpful for the economist as they assisted the country in the process of measuring as well as controlling the inflation gap created during the war time. At the same time, a working group was established in USA under the leadership of Donald Macgregor that worked for producing estimated regarding different economic variables however, there was ideological conflict between the Dominant Bureau of Statistics and the models of Kuznets and national Bureau of Economic Research that created a disappointing and frustrating economic environment in the country. One of the students of Keynes, Robert Bryce realized that there was great need of establishing a credible and reliable model for national accounts so that it can significantly work for the management of the economic matters that were badly affected during the depression and war time. In 1942, he call for a responsible role of the Dominant Bureau of Statistics and in 1944, there was a research and development staff created to work on the development of the national accounts. An important point of concern for the related people and authorities was the working coordination between the US departments and the Bank of Canada that was already working on creating the national accounts and this issue was resolve after the meeting of the head of Bank of Canada and head of US national accounts as they worked out to determine common set of standards for the management and control of the economic matters after the war. In the third and fourth part, the author continues explaining the development of the national accounting system and highlights the role and contribution of the Robert Bryce who was regarded as the Godfather of Canadian national accounts and praised his role in the development of the national accounting system. The author also mentions the names of some other economics and statistic experts that contributed in the process of national accounting system development including Claude Isbister Simon Goldberg and Luxton Chapman. These people efficiently work for the development and implementation of different economic reconstruction plans and worked out to find out the ways to replace the war time tax rental agreements. Herbert Marshall, an important statistician of DFB also declares some priorities that assist in the process of the development of national accounts. He initiated a study group on weekly basis to workout different aspects of the development plan. The head of Research and Development department and Assistant Dominion Statistician of DBS Goldberg also supported the integration of the system to facilitate the economics with improved interrelationship. The last two parts of the book discusses the development occurred from 1970s till the development of the system of National Accounts in 1993 and also highlight the major problems faced by the statisticians during these years. The sixth chapter is especially dedicated to express the significance, importance and authenticity of the national accounting system of Canada. In this way, the author captures the developmental pathway of the Canadian National Accounts System in different parts of the book and presents an insightful analysis of all the issues and aspects associated with the system and its evolution. The above description about the contents of the book allows having quick look at the contents of the book. The book tells that the Canadian national accounting system is much more then figures, numbers, measurements and representative of economic variables but it reflects the ideology of the Canadian nations and shows their courage and urge for innovation. The book very well connects the society and statistics and explains the link between the social system and economic facts and figures in quite interesting and light manner. Light because, the author has used very simple and easy understandable language. With little use of jargon and technical details, the author has presented his idea that is very well organized in different chapters. The writing style of Duncan has made the book interesting for even those who have little interest in reading books on subjects like economic, statistics and accounting system etc. In fact, the reading imparts the essence of history more than accounting and statistics because the readers can easily observe the expression of feelings that the author has put within the explanation of the economic concepts, systems and developments. The book focuses on the statistical system of the country and used to be placed under the section of business and management in most of the libraries and courses, however, the reading experience of this book proves to be much more than a business related book reading. In a very sophisticated manner, the author has presented a detailed account of information about the historical development of the national accounts of Canada. The book gives the impression of history because the author has described the development and responses of the accounts system towards the global incidents that occurred during that time. The book is a strong attempt to make the impression that the Canadian accounting system is the best system and up to a great extent, the author has successfully achieves his objectives. The author has very well shown the strength of the accounting system by highlighting its broad implications to the economic policies of the country. The background of the author insists about the credulity of the information that he has provided in the book. As mentioned above, the author was especially commissioned by the government’s board; the author has presented all the goods of the system in this book and has adopted an extensive appraising approach for the national statisticians. This thing somewhat questioned the level of biasness of the information provided in the book. As the author was commissioned by an official committee, there is an obvious impression that he will work to provide desired level and nature of results to the commission that hired him. He has focused to portray intensive good image of the Canadian statisticians as well as of the government as a supporting factor. This, indeed, is a good attempt to built the public and expert’s opinion in favor of the government by highlighting the positivity of the historical progression of the Canadian accounting system. Despite, the possibility of the biasness of information, it is a clear fact that the book presents a complex issue in a generally reliable way and presents the development of the accounting system as being part of the international intellectual progression. The information, facts and figures presented in the book can be viewed as credible and reliable information because the background of the author of the book is appropriate and competent for writing on this topic. He has a proficient hand to deal with this type of topic and issue and the analysis and description of the facts included in the book are reliable. In fact, the book is an important contribution to the literature and has gain respect and good reputation in the literary and business world. The author of the book also has good name and respect that supported the book and it was widely welcomed and praised at different forums. As the title of the book well describes the contents, there was an impression about the book that it will provide information about the significance of the Canadian national accounting system. The reading of the book further affirms this impression and it is found that the main objective of writing the book is to provide detailed information about the Canadian accounting system and to praise the role and contributions of the economics, accounting experts and statisticians that have played an important role in the development of the system. Overall, the book meets the expectations very well that were raised from the title of the book. The contents of the book also justify the background and scholarly position of its author because there are evidence based authentic facts and figures provided in the book. The presence of quotes at the starting page of each chapter further made the book interesting and credible. In sum, it can be said that the book “The Sum of the satisfactions – Canada in the Age of National Accounting” by “Duncan McDowall” is an important, valuable and authentic historical description of the development pathway of Canadian national accounting system that provides an insightful analysis of use of different theories and economics ideologies from time to time. It is a worth reading experience that informs the readers about the topic in very detailed manner. The book also shows that how the motivated and devoted people can work together to accomplish a great task that can further work to benefit the entire society. It is not just a historical description but also a source of inspiration to understand the importance of devoted, consecrated and committed efforts that finally result in the attainment of the objective. The book not only has a noticeable historical and business appraisal but possesses also a social value as well. Work Cited Duncan McDowall. The Sum of the Satisfactions: Canada in the Age of National Accounting. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008 Safarian, A. Edward. "The Sum of the Satisfactions: Canada in the Age of National Accounting." Canadian Public Administration. Institute of Public Administration of Canada. 2008. Read More