As far as I can tell, accounting is the measuring of a business in some 
currency. This facilitates two kinds of business decisions, intra and
inter-business, both of which are necessary in most economies. But, there 
have always been forces within accounting which act to retard the discipline's
advances. 

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For example, businesses do not have a standard dictionary of accounts, neither
do they have nomenclature rules for creating new accounts. I can only presume
that this is due, in part, to the lack of mass communication between firms on
an accounting level, and also, in part, to the social tendency to give things
names particular to a group. 

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Recently, the XML revolution has spilled over into accounting via <a
href="http://www.xbrl.org">XBRL</a> and <a
href="http://www.finxml.org">FinXML</a>, amongst others. Perhaps we'll see an
accounting structure develop, which is capable of sustaining change; but I'm
not holding my breath.  ;)

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