Virtual Oversight over Transnational Capitalism XBRL metadata and

Virtual Oversight over Transnational Capitalism XBRL metadata and renewed government control of the global economy Dr David Kreps, University of Salford & Renfred Wong, University of Bath

Agenda • • • Heim's ideas about Virtuality Digital markets Egovernment Transparency XBRL Latour's Inscription Gramsci's Hegemony

Virtuality Michael Heim Strong virtuality immersion, interaction, intensity Weak Virtuality information society. . .

Digital Markets Castells 24 hr global capital flows integrated financial markets working in real time billion dollar transactions in seconds

Crunch Sub-prime mortgages CDOs Lending pyramid on defaulting base Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros, AIG Uncertainty: no borrowing or lending: crunch High profile fraud - Enron, Bernard Madoff and others

Transparency e. Government - transparency Electronic middle-men don’t take a cut or bribe Better targeting and accountability Detailed audit trail

e. Xtensible Business Reporting Language Metadata - data about data, Resource description, information retrieval, interoperability, ownership, information management XML based - e. Xtensible Markup Language XML - general-purpose specification for creating custom markup languages

XBRL Charlie Hoffman Director of Industry Solutions-Financial Reporting at UBMatrix, Silicon Valley 1998 - Certified Public Accountant Proposed XBRL to High Tech Task Force of American Institute of Certified Public Accountants XBRL International - not-for-profit consortium of c 550 co's & agencies

XBRL & Transparency XBRL - knowledge management taxonomy (dictionary) for financial information, not unlike barcoding Static financial information made interactive Allows financial information to be extracted and compared instantaneously Saves analysts, regulators and other reporting authorities considerable time Creates level playing field in terms of access

Implementation China, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Spain - primary filing format. Japan - all public company reports Canada and other countries - voluntary programs. . . so far

Implementation - US May 2008 US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) announced plan to require both US and foreign filers use XBRL Large filers - c 500 companies with a market capitalisation > $5 bn (£ 2. 5 bn) from late 2008 Foreign filers using International Financial Reporting Standards to follow in 2011.

Updates IFRS Taxonomy 2008 complete translation of International Financial Reporting Standards into XBRL issued by The International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) Foundation

Wait and see A number of the major economies are still trying to “wait and see” Priority given to harmonisation of domestic ‘generally accepted accounting principles’ (GAAP) with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and/or International Accounting Standards (IAS).

XBRL and Heim ‘strong’ (ish) virtuality Immersion - located within the virtual realm of transnational financial flows, marking up with transparent metadata every detail of each of transaction Interaction - such immersion immediately changes the global financial scene into one no longer capable of harbouring the kind of obscurity, obfuscation and misleading complexity that brought about the credit crunch Information ‘intensity’ - global and intricate in scale

Inscription XBRL achieves transparency by inscription Inscription - Bruno Latour - refers to the way artefacts (including code languages) embody patterns or scenarios of use ‘Inscription’ can be used to describe how concrete anticipations and restrictions of future patterns of use are involved in the development and use of a technology

Hegemonic Shift Wider political and social change Gramsci: “recognised that social power is not a simple matter of domination on the one hand subordination or resistance on the other. ” ‘dominant’ groups govern with consent - they achieve hegemony XBRL-part of an inscription that seeks to return hegemonic control of transnational capitalism to democratically elected governments

Conclusion Image of virtuality as both medium of transnational capitalism through digital markets, and tool of social policy through financial regulation Between Heim’s strong & weak virtuality In the realm where XBRL is set to translate its inscription, technology and social policy are united and interlinked, at the nub of a geopolitical struggle between transnational capitalists and government regulators for supremacy over the market.

Contact Dr David Kreps d. g. kreps@salford. ac. uk http: //snipr. com/davidkreps