Accounting education in a free enterprise system;

              Accounting Education in a Free Enterprise System
by JOHN W. QUEENAN Executive Office
Presented before the Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Associ­ation,
Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan—August 1962
MY TOPIC for today combines two large areas: free enterprise and accounting education. The literature of accounting is replete with analyses of our educational system, so I will not attempt to assess our successes and failures nor will I evaluate the nature of the pre­scriptions
for perfecting it. I believe it will be helpful, however, to consider some of the history of the development of the free enterprise system, particularly as we find it evolving in the United States, and the implications therein for accountants and for our program of ac­counting
education.
THREE STAGES OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Free enterprise may be considered as having progressed through three broad stages: pre-business, private business, and public business. In the first stage the status of the individual was dominant in that he was not able to move freely from one stratum of society or occupation to another. The second marked the emancipation of the individual; his economic activities became mobile and his social status became fluid. This stage extended from the petty capitalism of the 13th cen­tury
through the flourishing trade under mercantile capitalism to the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. It culminated in the financial capitalism of the 19th and 20th centuries, characterized by emphasis on control—internal operating control within the busi­ness
enterprise and external financial control of the enterprise as a unit. The third stage—public business—may be divided into two phases: national capitalism, characterized by political instead of finan­cial
control of private capital, and (a term I think has merit) inter­national
capitalism, only now appearing on the horizon and charac­terized
by international political control.
International capitalism is a phenomenon we are watching unfold before our eyes. The economies of Western European nations are being linked through the Common Market. The ultimate effect of that system on our economic environment is difficult to predict, but it
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