On the political economy of skill in the advanced industrial nations

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Abstract
The importance of education and training policy is being enhanced by its increasingly high profile as a competitive strategy in the age of global capitalism. This article argues that human–capital theory, because it objectifies skill and fails to uncover its social context, offers an inadequate framework for understanding the relationship between the economy and skill systems. An adequate economic framework for understanding changes in education and training systems must be linked to a theory of institutional change in the economy. The article used one such theory, in building on the contributions of the regulation school but concludes that, contra the ideology of post–Fordism and of liberal political economists, a high–wage/high–skills strategy is only one route for capital accumulation in the 1990s, and that this route will only be achieved through conflict. The article concludes that, this used alongside other policies, a progressive education strategy which could be linked with the usage of high skills in industry would have some chance of success in the current era.

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