In essence, Colson advances a particular view of the public interest, one that implies an
emphasis on investors and creditors in capital markets, thus implying an underlying
neo-liberal ideology. He argues for redirecting the traditional emphasis of the American
public accounting profession on values of independence, objectivity and integrity,
towards a greater emphasis on protecting the interests of investors and creditors.
Nevertheless, while Colson’s rhetoric can be viewed as being largely congruent with a
neo-liberal ideology, it can also be seen that there is a certain degree of ambiguity with
respect to this ideological position in that a rigorously followed neo-liberal perspective
would probably maintain that there is no significant need for state mandated external
auditing because