{"id":4881,"date":"2020-01-14T22:46:47","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T21:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/?p=4881"},"modified":"2020-01-14T22:46:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-14T21:46:47","slug":"the-human-capital-hoax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2020\/01\/14\/the-human-capital-hoax\/","title":{"rendered":"The Human Capital Hoax"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ordinary capital refers to tangible items and investments: cash, property, equipment. It can be sold, split up, moved around. Human capital <\/em>is the accumulation of knowledge, skills, abilities, etc. inside a person.<\/em> As such, it can’t be separated from the human in which it resides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human capital comes in two types: specific human capital<\/em> is the set of skills that someone needs to do a specific job. (For example, knowing how to use a particular home-grown piece of software, or an idiosyncratic manufacturing process.) This is non-transferable: if the person goes to work for a different company, they can’t really take it with them. General human capital<\/em> is the set of skills and abilities that an employee can<\/em> take with them, and hence makes them (theoretically) more valuable to employers in a supposedly free marketplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the question is: who should pay for a person to develop that general human capital, which by definition cannot be separated from the person in which they reside? Back in the 1960s, neoclassical economics said: well, duh<\/em>, <\/em>the person is responsible for that themselves of course. Say hello to human capital theory<\/em>, the fall of free education, and the rise of the gig economy, zero-hours contracts, and out-of-control inequality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On my course<\/a> this term I’m doing the Learning & Development module! And in the first week, our lecturer Dr Rebecca Whiting<\/a> dropped this paper on us: “The Human Capital Hoax: Work, Debt and Insecurity in the Era of Uberization”<\/a> by Peter Fleming<\/a>, which takes an axe to the whole edifice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stands clearly in the corner of human dignity and social equality, but he uses the tools of economics to draw a straight line from the foundations of human capital theory to the obviously flawed practical outcomes we see in the world right now: “This has allowed the genuine yearning for worker independence to be hijacked and transformed into an instrument of proletarianization”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fuck yeah. One more quote I’m especially fond of: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“[…] a more balanced employment relationship is indispensable if self-determination is to be successfully renegotiated to create fairer life chances. […] One cannot truly express individualism, self-reliance and choice when desperately dependent on an unequal power relationship.<\/p>Fleming (2017)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It’s an academic essay, so it’s not quite a casual<\/em> read, but it’s a powerful tonic when the world outside looks a bit grim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ordinary capital refers to tangible items and investments: cash, property, equipment. It can be sold, split up, moved around. Human capital is the accumulation of knowledge, skills, abilities, etc. inside a person. As such, it can’t be separated from the human in which it resides. Human capital comes in two types: specific human capital is … <\/p>\n

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