Traditionally, accounting has been viewed as developing from the needs of a capitalist society. Littleton proposed that capitalism was a necessary precondition for the development of the present style of accounting. Some non-accountants have questioned whether accounting played a part in developing capitalism. Marxist Views of Accounting Marx subscribed to the labour theory of value. Increased value in a product comes from the addition of labour.
Capital equipment is merely past labour.
In traditional accounting we view profit as the return on capital invested. Profit is the amount of money that is able to be distributed to suppliers of equity capital. From a Marxist perspective, profit should be viewed as the return due to labour for adding value. Measuring profit as the return due to capitalists is reflecting the exploitation of labour by the capitalists.