ABSTRACT
The birth of human capital approach is said to be on the 28th of December 1960, at seventy-third annual meeting of American Economic Association, where the then President of the Association, Theodore Schultz, delivered his Presidential Address on 'investment in human capital'. A. Smith, J. S. Mill and A. Marshall highlighted the importance of education as a form of investment. For A. Smith, who views rational self-interest as the foundation of human action and association, the division of labour contributes to the productive powers of labour by increasing the 'dexterity' of workers. The political legitimisation function within which 'liberal education' thinking is understood as well, implies that one of the main aims of schooling is the legitimisation of the existing or emerging, social and political order. The former, within which the 'human capital' approach is better understood, implies that the state aims at the reproduction of the division of labour and of the skills carried out under capitalism.
