Adam Smith's Pins, Sausage Making and the Funding of College Education

Using the language and concepts of economic markets for the purpose of describing and evaluating the function and performance of educational institutions has been a common and growing practice throughout Western industrial societies for many years. The critique of such market analysis also has a long history. Critical assessments of market theory have been made by both conservatives and radicals. It comes as no surprise, of course, to learn that criticisms have been plentiful among left-wing political theorists like Antonio Gramsci. What is less well appreciated is that even iconic classical economists like Adam Smith had serious and explicitly moral reservations about the implications of market economics, especially as applied to education. While radicals called for greater democracy in education and conservatives sought to maintain exclusive control over elite institutions, both shared a skepticism of both the ideology and the social goals of educational reform. So, conservatives have often joined radicals in generating robust objections to the primacy of vocational training, instrumental values and the subservience of postsecondary institutions to the expressed needs of corporate ideology and the labour market (Grant, 1970, Prentice, 1977). In Ontario, the agenda for discussion about the primary purpose, organizational structure and funding of college education has been set for some time. One important document that epitomizes the market model and strikingly reveals the political and economic contradictions inherent in it is the "Road Map to Prosperity" (henceforward RMP), an economic plan for jobs in the twenty-first century published in 1999. Its emphasis upon regarding education as primarily a provider of specific training for the workplace has seldom been equaled. Its message continues to resonate with those whose commitment has been to vocational training as the main mandate of the college sector. This article assesses the economic and educational concepts contained in the RMP and their ongoing relevance for institutions of higher education, especially community colleges in Ontario.