ABSTRACT
Market models of welfare provision thus have their origins in classical political economy and its assumptions about human motivation and behaviour. The classical political economists were describing the system of economic relations of modern capitalism, but their descriptions very soon took the form of normative theory, incorporating therefore not only a picture of individuals' rational behaviour in market conditions but a set of assumptions about human motivation and behaviour in general. Some controversial issues of this kind have recently been raised in relation to adult education in the United States, and they can be interestingly analysed in relation to the anti-collectivist ideology. Nell Keddie takes a somewhat different view of individualism and its ideological significance for adult education from that taken by Allen B. Moore. Janet Pinch has recently outlined a social policy model of adult education which suggests one way in which individual needs are translated into social policy, or not.
