This is not an exit: accounting education and attempting to escape the capitalist realist “cage”

Purpose Through this reflexive, theoretically informed polemical piece, this paper aims to seek to reflect on the role of accounting education in United Kingdom Higher Education (UKHE). The authors reignite an old, but pertinent debate, whether accounting graduates should be educated to be accountants or receive a holistic, critical education. Design/methodology/approach The authors adopt a theoretical position drawing on the work of Slavoj Žižek and Mark Fisher, and their fusion of Lacanian psychoanalysis and Marxism, in particular Fisher’s (2009) conceptualisation of “capitalist realism” to take a critical standpoint on the effects that UKHE marketisation is having on the teaching of accounting and other business-related disciplines. Findings The authors outline four key aspects of where accounting education in UKHE is influenced by capitalist realism, as a result of the marketisation of UKHE. Research limitations/implications The paper is a reflexive polemic and so is limited by this written style and presentation. Social implications The authors argue that capitalist realism is a dominant theme that influences accounting education. They propose that universities now, more than ever, must focus on their societal duty to foster critical viewpoints in their graduates and dispose of a model that is subject to capitalist realism ontology. Originality/value The theoretical stance allows for a potentially deeper consideration of issues surrounding marketisation of higher education, from the micro level of social interaction (that of the accounting academic and their impact/perceptions of the reality).