Key ideas

Continuation of Bouchard, 1998Bouchard, P. (1998). Training and work: some myths about human capital. Learning for life: Canadian readings in Adult Education. Toronto. Thompson Educational Publishers., critique of human capital theory

Whereas a resource is something that one transforms, uses, or exploits in order to derive some benefit, capital is something that one owns, and as such it possesses intrinsic value for individuals and for society. Just like physical capital, knowledge capital can be acquired (through education) and preserved (through continuing education) and can yield dividends in the form of productivity and, arguably, the wealth of whoever owns it. But unlike other forms of capital, human capital cannot be separated from its holder, and its value is entirely dependent on that person’s capacity to apply his/her knowledge in an economically profitable enterprise.

Cost of education + opportunity cost < increased life-long earnings (Becker 1975)

Raising tuition fees does not lead to less demand, this means that education is closer to an investment than a consumer object (for whom we would expect demand to fall).

As cost of education rises, income of educated professionals also rise.

Q: Do salaries rise with cost of tuition, or do universities raise cost to cash in on rising job-market value?

Will overall prosperity of nation increase proportionately to the massive rise in access to higher education, or value diminish with diminished scarcity? In 1970s, return on investment dropped sharply.

Does education improve a person's economic productivity or just separate low earners from high earners? Signaling theory.

“Persons differing in education also differ in many characteristics that cause their income to differ systematically” (Becker 1975).

Although this may have direct consequences for the manager of a local business, it nevertheless amounts to a zero-sum game in which the same number of customers, receiving the same services, simply redistribute themselves according to some condition such as the perceived quality of customer support. In this case increasing competitive capacity, and not productivity, does nothing to further the goal of a stronger econom y for all.

Couldn't you say this about any improvement though - if Apple creates a better screen, you don't create more wealth, you just have more people buying Apple products and fewer buying Android? Is productivity just the ability to produce //more// of something, or also //better//?

Higher ed mainly benefits individuals, who either benefits directly in-country or emigrates.

Knowledge-based wealth replaces production-based earnings, and do not “trickle down”.

By using human knowledge (associated with ownership) rather than work (associated with production) as the new criterion for attributing value, we are in effect saying that the economy is legitimately owned by ‘those who know’ and that economic policy should therefore be guided to meet their ends.

However, most participants in economy are not in knowledge-based industries.

Natural tendency for semi-monopolies to form in knowledge based industries.

No accounting for social economy, NGOs, etc, only globalized competitive for-profit sector.

Work confers to its members the status of active participants in the affairs of society, and indeed the social fact of being employed is ingrained in the very identity of citizenship. This is why any policy that purports to have an effect on the quality or the composition of the workplace must pursue, above all else, the goal of social inclusion rather than that of a pecking order determined by knowledge.