Human Capital: A Critique

The human capital approach increasingly has been absorbed within the folds of cultural determinism. The trend has been so pronounced that it prompted the organization of a session at the December 1984 American Economic Association meetings in Dallas, Texas, entitled “Human Capital and Culture: Analyses of Variations in Labor Market Performance.” The papers from that session are available in the May 1985 issue of the American Economic Review. One of the discussants for the session was Stephen Steinberg, a sociologist at Queens College. Steinberg was invited to comment on the presented papers for two major reasons—first, he had written an outstanding study that debunked many of the conventional linkages made between culture and ethnic achievement, The Ethnic Myth, and second, as a sociologist, he was expected to provide a perspective on the subject quite different from the rest of the panelists, all of whom were economists. In the midst of the coven of economists, Steinberg appeared well armed. He arrived with his own paper, a paper that went far beyond comments on the presented papers. Unfortunately, the current rules governing the inclusion of papers in the AEA proceedings prohibit publication of the discussants’ remarks. Fortunately, Steinberg graciously has consented to have the paper appear in the Review of Black Political Economy.