ABSTRACT
The world has been living through an era of neoliberal hegemony, since neoliberalism made the global big time in the 1980s. At the heart of neoliberalism is the “economisation” of everything, described by American political theorist Wendy Brown as “the conversion of non-economic domains, activities and subjects into economic ones extending market metrics and practices to every dimension of human life; political, cultural, personal, vocational, educational.” The neoliberal movement draws on other, related ideas. “Human capital” theory, first articulated in the 1950s, has become immensely influential today referring to the knowledge, information, ideas, skills and health of individuals, all the capacities needed for economic success. The young child is an empty vessel to be filled with competencies, a not yet ready adult starting out on a constant process of ready fication whose end point is to eventually become homo economicus, a good investment for the creation of future human capital.
