The first issue of this journal is out. It will be interesting to track and see what happens to the concept in light of potential upcoming shifts in U.S. imperialism. No surprise that it comes from Chicago UP, since the term is vintage Chicago school of economics.
For a quick and dirty definition, Gary Becker, one of the Chicago fathers of the term, defines it as the “knowledge, skills, health, or values” invested in and inseparable from humans that makes them productive. As “human capital” has, during Bush’s presidency, become integrated into the development regime of the World Bank, each of the attributes — knowledge, health, values– becomes targets.
Unsurprisingly, the opening issue has an overview of the concept’s history, confirming that “human capital” emerged in relation to two problematics: 1) rural development (via Theodore Shultz) and 2) fertility (via Gary Becker, who has worked in the Bush administration with Rumsfeld’s Defense Policy Board). Both won Nobel Prizes.
Chewing over what is different about the way “human capital” helps to reassemble production and reproduction (compared to, for example, demography) I’m trying to think through the way it shifts how “quality” matters. Read the rest of this entry »
