Human Capital: The Tragedy of the Education Commons

by Guy Standing

'One of the clearest and most important studies to be published on education, worldwide, in many decades' Danny Dorling

Does the education system make better people? Why are so many – teachers and students alike – stressed and dissatisfied? Do we need to revive real education?

Ideally, education is about the pursuit of truth, beauty and morality. But in the last few decades, a perilous fixation with human capital – skills, knowledge and aptitudes required for the labour market – has trampled over curricula, schools and universities. Rather than learning how to think critically about the world, from cradle to grave students are trained to be more effective workers, to make more money, and to serve an hegemonic ideology. Teachers and researchers are pressed to serve those goals.

In this concluding book in his series on the commons, Guy Standing shows us how education – intrinsically a common public good – has been enclosed, privatised, financialised and corrupted, turned into an instrument of societal control, not human emancipation, weakening democracy, not strengthening it. Human Capital charts how the education industry largely serves commercial interests, not its teachers and students, and considers how to revive its lost values, to save society for the common good.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, History, Education

506 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 29, 2026

About the author

Guy Standing is a British professor of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN).

Standing has written widely in the areas of labour economics, labour market policy, unemployment, labour market flexibility, structural adjustment policies and social protection. His recent work has concerned the emerging precariat class and the need to move towards unconditional basic income and deliberative democracy.

Reviews

[Tara Brabazon]

A potent, provocative and convincing argument. This is a book with a spine of intellectual steel.

Well researched, historically rigorous, and with a clear lens on the present political, social and economic disasters, this book probes what we have lost with the destruction of the education commons. The decline in the public good - through the decline of public libraries, public schools, public knowledge - has ripped at the fabric of not only social justice, but civilization. There is a strong section in this book about the impact of Generative AI on the definitions and applications of skill, learning and knowledge.

An outstanding book. Of its time. For its time. Chilling. Powerful.

[Zoë]

As someone working in education, a lot of what Guy Standing outlines in Human Capital resonated deeply with what I witness and fear from reading the news and tracking education policy choices around the world. However, seeing it laid out so systematically was startling.

Standing masterfully connects the dots between the ‘money-makers’ (the rising plutocracy) and the widening chasm of modern inequality. He exposes an uncomfortable truth: so many elements of our education system are being systematically flushed for profit and corporate commodification, rather than doing what education should do—fostering open, enquiring minds and preparing young people for true citizenship.

This is manifesting in a number of catastrophic and dangerous ways, and Standing’s tome is deeply investigative in exposing instances where money-making has trumped (pun intended) the pursuit of a free and balanced education; for example, publishers self-censoring topics such as racial profiling in policing or removing ‘implications that the climate crisis is a proven fact’ so as to continue to make financial profits.

The closed networks of million and billionaires taking ownership of education and using it as a license to print money is, frankly, scandalous; and Standing exposes many examples of the rich and powerful taking on education opportunities that should be strictly non-profit and then milking them by awarding contracts to businesses that they also own – often financially mis-managing the entity into the ground before leaving with a hearty personal payout.

Human Capital is an apt title; as long as I can remember, success in education has been defined in terms of how much money you can make as a result of your education. University is deemed poor value-for-money if the degree doesn’t yield an increase in income. This is exemplified by the 2023 article by The Economist ‘Useless Studies’ – if the degree doesn’t make you rich, it’s useless. We are bound up chasing a capitalistic fantasy in which there should be no artists, poets, classicists or philosophers. Yet, people are not capital.

This was a tough holiday read. The points made in this book are incredibly sound, deeply urgent, and should serve as a massive wake-up call for any education policy maker.

The only reason this didn't get a full five stars comes down to its accessibility. The book assumes a robust grasp of economics from the outset. It is peppered with academic jargon that might feel a alienating to anyone who isn't already deeply engaged with the discipline. I was having to look up quite a few words as I went along. In part as a result of this, an also due to sentence and chapter length, some of the chapters dense and require real effort to pick through.

That nuance aside, the core message is vital. It’s an essential, eye-opening read for anyone who cares about the future of learning and the soul of our society. I am loudly recommending it to colleagues, and, if I knew any of them (!) I’d be leaving it on the desk of education policy makers and hoping that, against all odds, the messages get through.

[Jessica Johnson]

AKA late stage capitalism ruins things again.

This book explores the modern state of the education system from preschool to university (with a focus on England/USA). He paints a picture of an education system more and more focusing solely on the creation of ”human capital” (good workers) where quality is being corrupted by soulless investors out to make as much profit as possible.

This book is jam packed with interesting facts and ideas (and a lot of depressing facts…) Some things that stood out to me:

- What does it say about the education system when Boris Johnson went to some of the ”best” schools in England?
- Should universities only teach skills/knowledge relevant for a career or should they also support the moral development of their students?
- Special needs schools being described as a ”great investment opportunity!”
- We should bring back workers guilds, as in it would be the people working in the education system who govern it, instead of profiteering investors or corrupt/inknowledgable politicians.
- Universities selling research to companies to make money to survive (companies save money by not having to do their own research, instead can make a profit off of government funded research)
- Universities in the USA self-censoring to please the rich investors that keep them afloat.
- There will always be a demand for education (and governments will help fund it!) so it’s a great investment opportunity! Turn your millions into billions today :)

The author (one of the people who first proposed the concept of a universal income) proposes that education should be about the search for truth and developing people into moral citizens ready to participate in a democracy. A place where different view points can be openly discussed and is accessible to everyone. Where there is room for variety in how teachers teach and students learn instead of everything being standardized and the focus being on exams. Plus more time set aside for deep reading (oh yes I’m definitely in support of more deep reading )

So there’s both inspiring ideas about how education could be and many depressing facts about the state of it today. Honestly there’s so many interesting points its hard to choose just a few to bring up here.

Though depressing this book makes me at least happy to be studying to work as a teacher in Swedish preschools. I think the preschool system here is very close to what the author believes in. Where the focus is on developing the children as a whole human being both morally and intellectually.

[Philip]

A very readable book which principally covers the international erosion/deconstruction of the education system by private capital - but also goes on to show how that then impinges upon virtually everything else in our daily.

The underlying idea is that there are certain aspects of human activity and the environment which should be held for the benefit of all humanity. Instead, since the mediaeval period, it has gradually dwindled to the point where no one apart from private owners can do so. That is a problem in itself but then, under the neoliberal capitalist wave of recent decades, those former "commons" are grossly destroyed for insatiable private gain in a smaller number of hands. This applies to land and sea, ideas and inventions, social networks and community rights. This extent of how this has been done recently with the complicity (wittingly or otherwise) of governments worldwide is truly shocking on many levels. In effect, private equity, partial media and government officials all with the same vested interests have created the climate where much of this has gone on in clear view. Yet, it has rarely been properly or comprehensively challenged because private interests are platformed as efficient and necessary as opposed to public or community guardianship, focus or involvement being inefficient or unworkable. Since most private equity is attempting to extract as much short term gain from projects and assets where the investors have no direct interest in the medium or short term localised depletion or destruction, there is only one way that this approach to the planet or its life forms will go, and we are all suffering with the poorest people on the planet suffering more than anyone else.

So, in the middle of this is the multinational privatisation of education, and the change in education approach. The historical background to where we are now is covered worldwide but with particular emphasis on the USA and UK. Education has been modularised, and stripped of its true purpose. Rather than improving empathy, seeking truth and providing skills of free and critical thinking, it has been debased and limited to training pupils by rote (not by discussion or dialogue) for the market place and also to embrace or not question the present neoliberal world view by normalising private equity approaches to the world which can only result in catastrophe. In achieving this, the former profession of teaching has been dismantled to crush any real individuality or knowledge from the teachers (many of whom are little more than upgraded teaching assistants) or any deep attempt at teaching arts or philosophy (subjects with no perceived usefulness in the modern productive work place) or critical analysis. That then feeds into the employment market place which has been created where even a degree (debased to what it actually meant 5 decades ago) is merely a step to immediate debt and a place in the precariot (careers/jobs that have no security and consequent high levels of stress which mean that constructive thinking is the least of a person's worries during their lifetime.)

There is so much more in this book to ponder. Strands are developed into other areas of life, sometimes surprising, sometimes horrifying in terms of how full control is achieved bit by bit until is irreversible not just for good teachers but once great universities. The transition from the Reagan/Thatcher years to now is both remarkable and incessant.

The insidiousness of how a few people and organisations are shaping everything for 8 billion people in their own image is now well developed. The patterns are repetitive (and this book does emphasise that with its own repetition) because they have worked. This goes beyond mere governmental level, and undermines the ability of people to function in a democracy because large numbers simply do not possess the basic skills to question anything either from a moral point of view or from any other angle of logic or benefit. In turn, this allows the populists of the political and business world to circumvent true scrutiny and become untouchable on a very superficial level.

The author does put forward a number of approaches to reclaim the "commons" of education but one gets the impression that, valuable though this book is on explaining the mess we are in, the present system is now so entrenched both physically (in terms of owning schools) and in its apparent normality to people (who then instinctively dismiss true alternatives include ones that their enriched their forebears) that there is sadly no going back. Certainly, it would be difficult for any single government in the world to do that on its own. The world of 1984 looms for future generations especially as AI invades what remains of the Socratic view of education.