The Learning Societyfor

The Learning City

Glenn Rikowski(University of Birmingham)

Patrick Ainley(University of Greenwich)

Stewart Ranson(University of Birmingham)

A Paper Presented atThe Annual Conference of theRoyal Geographical Society

and theThe Institute of British Geographers

New Horizons: Reconstructing Urban Horizons and Horizons in PhysicalGeography

for the Session onThe ‘Learning City’: Education and the Urban

STRATHCLYDE '96

University of Strathclyde3-6th January

1996

The Learning Societyfor the

Learning City

Glenn Rikowski (University of Birmingham)Patrick Ainley (University of Greenwich)Stewart Ranson (University of Birmingham)

‘To Labour in Knowledge is to Build Jerusalem and to Despise Knowledge is to DespiseJerusalem’

William Blake

IntroductionIn periods of social transformation education becomescentral to our future well-being. Only if learning isplaced at the centre of our experience can individualscontinue to develop their skills and capacities,institutions be enabled to respond effectively andimaginatively to a period of change, and the differencebetween communities become a source of reflectiveunderstanding. The challenge for policy-makers in thisanalysis, is to promote the conditions in which such alearning society can unfold.

This idea of a learning society has been enormouslyinfluential. It has provided guiding assumptions for therenewal of economy and society for national politicians,European Commission working parties, city policy-makers,

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corporate strategists and industrial trainers. Within theacademic community the ESRC has identified the learningsociety as a key area for research and has set up itsLearning Society Programme.

A considerable literature has developed, yet theconcept has remained essentially contested. The sharedcommitment to the idea of the ‘learning society’ oftenmasks considerable variation in interpretation of theconcept. Three related but different models of thelearning society can be discerned. Firstly, learning forwork. This model rests on individuals accumulatingtransferable skills for the labour market. Theopportunities, through information technologydevelopments, for creating satisfying contexts for‘craft’ work is sometimes an element of this model. Thesecond model emphasises individuals learning forcitizenship by creating ‘wealth’ within the communitieswithin which they live and work. The third interpretationof the learning society emphasises learning for democracywith citizens participating actively in political arenas, inshaping political agendas, in critically examining publicand private services and products and in politicalmobilisation, debate and voting on policies.

Though different models of the learning society haveemerged, the potential for productive synthesis wouldseem to be particularly strong. However, the dominantmodel of the learning society, in terms of policy anddebate, is the first model, with its narrow, economisticand market-oriented approach. In strategic terms, thispaper outlines this dominant model, provides a variety ofcritiques (both policy and theoretical critiques) of thedominant, ‘practical’ model of the ‘learning society’ andthen goes on to provide an alternative model of thelearning society which offers real hope for thedevelopment of dynamic and exciting learning cities.

The form and nature of the societal infrastructureprovides the socio-economic soil which feeds and nurtures

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emerging specimens of ‘learning city’. Learning cities donot emerge and develop ex nihilo. Neither do they springforth in splendid isolation from wider national andglobal social trends and developments. They areconditioned and de-limited within a constellation ofsocio-economic relations and networks. This pointsignposts the central concern of this paper which is anexploration of the relations between certain features ofthe national socio-economic context (especially educationand training policies and practices) and the potentialfor constructing a particular form of learning city.These basic concerns are axiomatic for an understandingof the arguments presented here.

Five interrelated arguments shape this paper.Firstly, it is argued that discussions about the form ofthe future ‘learning society’ show early signs ofbecoming unduly and debilitatingly economistic,nationalistic or idealist. These points will beillustrated with reference to some of the cameos, sketchesand idealised fragments through which analysts andcommentators on the learning society have providedglimpses of the ‘learning society’ of the future.

Secondly, it is shown that the practical mode ofexistence, the dominant and determining form of theemerging ‘learning society’, is manifested in theprogramme of national and local action set around theNational Education and Training Targets (NETTs). It isargued that the ‘learning society’, when viewed throughthe NETTs perspective, degenerates into a specificallycapitalist social form where raising the quality of humanlabour power for the national capital becomes paramount.Thus, the ‘learning society’ comes to embrace a rampantnationalism as well as subsuming the capacities andpowers of human beings under the reductionist programmeof incorporating personal attributes into thetransformation of labour power into labour withincapitalist labour processes. Under the NETTs mission, it

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is the quality of specific attributes of the person viewedas constitutive of labour power which becomes vital.From an educational point of view, therefore, the wholeNETTs movement is limited and circumscribed by the‘needs’ of British capital regarding labour power. Thedegeneration of the ‘learning society’ through the NETTsis a crucial part of what Avis (1993a, 1995) has called aNew Consensus or a new settlement regarding British post-compulsory education and training. At the heart of thisNew Consensus is the agreement by all major Britishpolitical parties, the CBI and other employers’organisations, TECs/LECs, the TUC and many leadingeducationalists that the future health of the Britisheconomy depends especially upon enhancing the skills,enterprise and competences of the nation’s workforce. Asan editorial in The Guardian (1996) noted recently:

‘All are agreed that the status - andstandards - of post-16 vocationaleducation must be raised if Britain isto compete in the modern world.’ (1stJanuary, p.10).

The following example illustrates the degree of this NewConsensus:

‘The role of government in this world ofchange is to represent a nationalinterest, to create a competitive baseof physical infrastructure and humanskills, to educate and retrain for thenext technologies, to prepare ourcountry for new global competition, andto make our country a competitive basefrom which to produce the goods andservices people want to buy.’ (T. Blairin The New Statesman, 29th September 1995,when it could as easily have been M.Heseltine in The Spectator).

The NETTs process can be viewed from one perspective asbeing simply a measuring tool for ascertaining how thenation is progressing in terms of producing the ‘worldclass’ workforce.

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Thirdly, through the work of Ainley and Green(1995a,b,c; 1996) it is shown how the NETTs mission comesto take on a second degenerative aspect. As the operativedefinition of the ‘learning society’ comes to be equated,by default, with the NETTs process then the ‘learningsociety’ transmogrifies into the ‘certified society’.People chase after qualifications on an expanded scaleand this process is viewed by its proponents as beingequated with either a ‘skills revolution’, enhanced‘competitiveness’ or as ‘adding value’ through lifelonglearning (Commission on Social Justice, 1994). This partends our presentation of the dominant model of thelearning society, the economistic NETTs-led model whichis emerging by default.

The fourth part of the paper begins to open up ourpositive case. It takes an alternative tack throughexploring a perspective on the learning society theorisedthrough the work of various Nietzschean scholars(especially Thiele, 1990; Joos, 1987; and Nehemas, 1985)and Ranson (1994) where the learning society isperspectivised in terms of a trajectorised approach topersonal and social becoming. The Nietzschean attitudeincorporated in this enterprise takes the argument forthe learning society well beyond narrow economism,chasing NETTs and the reduction of human powers andattributes to labour power.

The fifth part of the paper provides an argument forthe possibility of a learning society as envisaged byRanson (1994). It sets out some of the preconditions,presuppositions and foundations for such a learningsociety based on the work of Ranson and Stewart (1994).Practically, this would require a democratic overhaul ofthe present British constitution, including, importantly,a reconstruction of local and regional government thatwould comprehend autonomy and possible independence forthe constituent nations of the Union.

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The Conclusion solidifies some key links between thevarious arguments pursued in the paper. Finally, theprospects for the emergence of a worthwhile learningsociety and learning city are touched upon.

Learning Society: Cameos, Sketches and FragmentsApart from Ranson (1990, 1992,1994 with Stewart 1994)there has been no sustained writing on the theory of thelearning society in Britain. All we have are a series ofcameos, sketches and fragments. As Ainley points out:

‘Only poets and science fiction writershave imagined what a learning societywould look like and how it would differfrom today’s world. Long before theadvent of computers that provide mostsuch speculations with their technicalstructure, Hugh McDiarmid, for example,imagined ‘Glasgow 1960’ in a poemwritten some years earlier. Externalappearances of the city had not changed- “Busses and trams all labelled “To Ibrox”/ Swungpast packed tight” - however, the peoplewere not going to a football match, butto listen to a debate on theconservation of energy - “Between ProfessorMacFadyen and a Spainish pairty” - while theheadlines on the papers screamed,“Special! Turkish Poet’s Abstruse New Song./ ScottishAuthors’ Opinions” - and, “holy snakes,/ I saw theedition sell like hot cakes.”’ (1994a, p.156).

In contrast to such visionary speculations this sectionconcentrates on a series of cameos and sketches of the‘learning society’ provided by Young (1995), Ranson et al(1995) and Edwards (1995). Examination of these stuntedoutlines of the ‘learning society’ establishes some ofthe key motifs incorporated within much discussion anddebate concerning the learning society of the future.

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As Young (1995) has noted, there are many definitionsand perspectives on the learning society; it is anessentially ‘contested concept’ (p.4). He provides threemodels of the learning society. The differences betweenthese models reflects different interests and visions ofthe future (incorporating different models of social andeconomic development) and ‘different strategies forgetting there’ (Ibid.). Firstly, Young describes the‘schooling model’ of the learning society. Here, thestress is on high participation in post-compulsoryeducation and training which aims to ensure that as manypeople as possible reach some minimum education andtraining targets. The British NETTs provides an empiricalmanifestation of this perspective on the learningsociety. Young fails to provide an account of how thisview of the learning society relates to wealth creation,or even human capital formation and other economic andsocial processes. Historically, his ‘schooling model’(which seems basically to be about increasing thequantity of ‘schooling’ in terms of duration) of thelearning society seems to point to quantitativedevelopments such as the raising of the school-leavingage in the early 1970s, increased staying-on rates in the1980s and the emergence of mass higher education in the1990s.

Young’s second model of the learning society - the‘credentialist model’ - seems to be conflated with hisfirst model as it is hard to envisage a ‘schooling model’that does not imply increased credentialism. Young seemsto abstract qualifications from schooling which makeslittle sense in terms of the later years of compulsoryschooling (GCSE, GNVQ Part 1), and even less sense inrelation to post-compulsory schooling (A-Level, GNVQetc.). These forms of schooling are substantially aboutgaining academic credentials. However, this second model:

‘... gives priority to ensuring that thevast majority of the population havequalifications or certified skills and

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knowledge and that the qualificationspeople achieve are related to theirfuture employment.’ (p.5)

The credentialist model allows for qualifications beinggained beyond academic institutions (through work-basedlearning, for example) and also relates to wealthcreation and economic growth.

The third, ‘access’ model, relates closely to lifelongor lifetime learning. It points to a society wherelearning beyond compulsory education is commonplace andwhere learning takes place beyond formal academicinstitutions. Again, it seems to overlap with the‘credentialist model’ on this last point. Young shows howthe access model relates to both a neo-liberal obsessionwith freeing learning from the control of the ‘expert’and professional educator and to a progressive concernwith autonomy, learner-centredness, flexible and openlearning and harnessing the potential of the newtechnology (p.7). Economically, Young views the model asbeing tied to a vision of de-industrialism or post-industrial society where education becomes anotherconsumer choice. The model stresses breaking downbarriers to learning, supporting learners (in a learner-led curriculum) rather than teaching and (through the useof computer technology) cutting learning costs. Youngnotes its similarities with Illich’s 1970s vision of the‘deschooled society’, though, with the technologicaldevelopments of the last twenty years, the model hasgreater technical feasibility now than it did then.

Young rejects all three models, on the basis ofcritiques of each which he presents in his paper, andargues instead for an ‘educative model’ of the learningsociety. This perspective involves the recognition thatlearning is involved in all social interaction (p.11).Using the work of Engestrom (1994), Young provides adescription of three levels of learning (first-third orderlearning) and designates a ‘learning society’ as being a

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society where the third order of learning predominatesin all social interactions. This third order level oflearning is:

‘... expansive learning in which thelearner questions and begins totransform the context or ‘community ofpractice’ where the learning begins.’(p.11)

Young’s ‘educative model’ points to social transformationwithout specifying how the abstract individual learnerwill ‘transform the context’, or, in conjunction withother ‘expansive learners’, how collectivities of ‘newhumans’ will ensure the material, institutional,political and social transformation necessary formaintenance of this mode of existence. Secondly, Youngprovides no theory of the emergence of these specimens ofnew humanity. Rather, he views ‘emergent properties’ ofthe new educative paradigm as arising spontaneously.Short of teleology, Young’s ‘educative’ model provides noaccount of how political, social and economic processeswill yield up the ‘expansive learner’. However, his‘educative model’ is closer to a vision of a learningsociety than the other three, stunted, ‘straw models’ hesets the former against. The first three models allstress the learning aspect at the expense of any realanalysis of the society within which it is embedded.These educational imperialistic models merely extendeducation and training out into the community instead ofspecifying the processes through which the society canbecome a social entity where learning organically flowsthrough all social interactions and exchanges. This isbecause, while he relates learning to employment, Youngdoes not relate learning to leisure. He also ignores theproblem of permanent and structural unemployment, merelyassuming a return to full-employment. Nor does hechallenge what Aronowitz and DiFazio (1994) call ‘TheDogma of Work’.

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Ranson et al (1995) located a triad of perspectives onthe learning society within the literature. Firstly, thelearning society can be viewed as being largely concernedwith skill development for the labour market. This is thenarrow, economistic version much favoured by theConfederation of British Industry (1989) with its ‘skillsrevolution’ and commentators who view the learningsociety mainly as a vehicle for regenerating the Britisheconomy. The ‘society’ element in this conception getssubstituted for ‘economy’.

The second emphasis is on useful knowledge for work(Cooley, 1993; Ainley, 1993,1994a). Here, the potentialfor new information technologies to create satisfyingwork and for workplaces to be infused with democraticprocesses (where workers have more control over allaspects of work, but especially over human/machineinteraction) is highlighted. This conception is moreexpansive than the first in so far as it acknowledges theinterests of labour as well as those of capital. However,Ranson et al see this perspective as tending towards anarrow economism.

The third perspective views the learning society asbeing a society which incorporates learning for citizenship(Husen, 1974; Ranson, 1992, 1994). This form of learningis ‘active’ in the sense that the processes of learningare embedded within active participation in the communityand in wealth creation. It is learning for life throughactive participation in social life itself and throughoutthe lifetime of the learner. Thus, it goes beyond theeconomism of the first two perspectives and also breaksdown the barrier between the ‘economy’ and extra-economicinstitutions, process and practices. Finally, it linkssocial and economic innovation to active, agency-manifesting behaviours of citizens. Therefore, it viewsthe learning society as not being a static socialformation but as an ever-changing social aggregation ofprocesses of unfolding or becoming (Sztompka, 1991). In a

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series of publications, Ranson (1990, 1992, 1993a, 1994)has provided criteria for evaluating the extent to whicha society can be designated a ‘learning’ society, thepresuppositions, principles, values and purposescomprising the key components of a learning society,models which set out strategies for reconstructingsociety towards becoming a learning society (1992, pp.72-74) and the personal and social conditions for learningwithin a learning society.

On this last point, Hayes, Fonda and Hillman (1995)also acknowledge that viewing the learning society as aconglomeration of ‘learning organisations’ isinsufficient and set out some institutional preconditionsfor the growth and maintenance of a learning society.Their view of a the ‘learning polity’ which seeks toprovide a social foundation for the learning society toflower and develop has similarities with Ranson’sdecentralised, bottom-up and democratic perspective. LikeRanson, they also acknowledge that national strategiesfor framing a supportive infrastructural environment inorder for local community-centred initiatives to developis an essential element. Ranson et al’s last perspective onthe learning society will be explored more fully in thelast two sections of this paper.

Edwards (1995) also provides three perspectives on thelearning society. Firstly, he argues, the learningsociety can be viewed as the educated society. On this view,active citizenship, liberal democracy and equalopportunities are stressed within a lifelong learningtrajectory. It is education for social and economicchange. This has similarities with Ranson’s thirdperspective outlined above and can be viewed as a liberaldemocratic model. Edwards’ second perspective on thelearning society focuses on the learning market. It is aneconomistic model. The emphasis here is on educationaland training institutions providing individualisedlearning services within a lifelong learning outlook

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where the whole process is premised upon enhancing thecompetitiveness of the British economy. The thirdperspective views the learning society as being anaggregate of learning networks (with local, national,European and global dimensions) where learners adopt a‘learning approach to life’ (p.187); learning ‘withattitude’! The process is powered by access to newtechnology and is consonant with a postmodern consumermodel of the learning society where learners are‘empowered’ through viewing learning as a pleasurable,individualised and student-centred activity. Again, allthis takes place within a lifelong learning framework.

Many criticisms could be launched at all of theseconceptions of the learning society. Indeed, the authorsthemselves provide a critique of the versions which theydo not favour. Edwards (1995) points to contradictionsand tensions within all currently available perspectives onthe learning society. He particularly highlights theinequalities which are masked by appeals to a learningsociety based on ‘learning markets’, ‘the empowerment oflifelong learning’, ‘learning networks’ or ‘learning inthe community’. Thus, argues Edwards:

‘... we need to look closely at thefront of the banner of the learningsociety before we walk behind it.’(p.189)

When the banner of the ‘learning society’ is examinedthrough the lens of the cameos, sketches and fragmentsoutlined above, at least four observations can bediscerned. Firstly, some of these sketches are embeddedwithin a discourse where the ‘learning society’ figuresas mere means for the regeneration of British capital.The ‘learning society’ is viewed as being essentiallyconcerned with raising the quality of human labour power(relative to that of other national capitals) throughoutthe British capital. This prognosis also includes asecondary quantitative aspect where ‘skills’ become moreabundant throughout the national capital.

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A second observation is that there is a furtherquantitative emphasis on more, longer periods, evenlifetimes of ‘learning’, ‘schooling’ or ‘education’ suigeneris, where ‘learning’, ‘schooling’ or ‘education’ areviewed as practices apart from economic missions andquests. This ‘purist’ perspective comes close to‘learning-for-its-own-sake’. Moreover, at one extreme, itincorporates an incipient credentialism where ‘learning’becomes umbilically tied to the piling up ofqualifications and education credits (both at anindividual and societal level).

Thirdly, there is a transcendental moment, especiallywithin Ranson et al’s (1995) third option and Young’s (1995)fourth perspective on the ‘learning society’. This iswhere the ‘learning society’ banner is used as catalystfor social transformation. For Young, the ‘learningsociety’ provides the foundation for a movement towards anew social formation permitting the emergence of‘expansive learners’ and ‘new humans’. For Ranson et al, itprovides rich soil for moving towards a rejuvenateddemocracy with expansive rights and responsibilitiesencircling a ‘new citizenship’.

The second and third observations are closely alliedto another which points to the abstraction of ‘learning’,‘schooling’ and ‘education’ from the form of society. Evenin the economistic versions of the ‘learning society’,both the form and nature of this ‘new’ society and ananalysis of the form and nature of existing society areunderdeveloped, one-sided or (typically) absent. Ofcourse, uncharitably, it could be argued that, in thesediscourses, ‘learning society’ becomes synonymous with ataken-for-granted ‘capitalism’. At least some view theform and nature of the ‘learning society’ as an issue forcomment. Hayes, Fonda and Hillman (1995), for example,posit the learning society as ‘... a new form ofsociety.’ (p.3) but without saying either how it differsfrom capitalism or providing an analysis of how the

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‘learning society’ will emerge from within the bowels ofcapital. As Barratt Brown (1995) has acknowledged, formany social theorists and political commentators it is‘... very old-fashioned and backward looking to talkabout capitalism.’ (p.1). However, transgressing thenorms of this political correctness (or incorrectness),the following two sections problematise the ‘learningsociety’ as capitalist form. It is argued that the emerging‘learning society’ is degenerating, in its practical modeof existence, into a social form dominated by the labourpower ‘needs’ of British capital. As such, it alsodescends into a rampant economic nationalism. Thefollowing section explores the notion of capitalist form andargues that the ‘learning society’, when viewed inrelation to the British National Education and TrainingTargets (NETTs), degenerates into a capitalist socialform driven by the ‘need’ to raise the quality of Britishlabour power.

Capitalist Forms and the NETTsThis section is underpinned by an Open Marxistperspective as developed in the writings of Bonefeld(1994, 1995), Burnham (1994), Gunn (1992, 1994) andHolloway (1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995) and the threevolumes on Open Marxism (1992a, 1992b, 1995) by Bonefeld etal. Open Marxism as developed by these analysts isprimarily a negative theory against society, rather thanbeing a positive theory of society and which seeks tomerely explain capitalist oppression. It is againstsociety in three senses. Firstly, such a theory startsfrom the ‘experiential rejection of existing society’(Holloway, 1995, p.158) - it is the ‘scream of refusal’represented as social theory. It articulates therejection of capitalism (Ibid.). Secondly, through viewingany purported ‘development’ (such as an emergent

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‘learning society’) as being internally related (Ollman,1993) to the social forms within a society dominated bycapital such a theory shows how various capitalist socialforms establish limits to social progress and betterment.Thirdly, a negative theory of society seeks to understandthe frailties and contradictions of the rule of capitalthroughout society. This final point necessitates someunderstanding of capitalist society, but the relevance andpower of Marxism must ultimately be judged against itscapacity to provide a radical critique of society(Holloway, 1994), otherwise, as history shows, it facesthe danger of degenerating into mere academicism (throughrational choice Marxism, the ‘capital logic’ school, thestate derivationists and the like).

One of key concepts developed by the Open Marxistwriters is that of social form. This concept is importanthere as it will be argued that the ‘learning society’, inso far as it seems to be taking on any actual substance,can be read as a capitalist form grounded in and seriouslyde-limited by the NETTs process. What, then, does it meanto understand social phenomena as ‘forms’?

Capitalist Forms

Understanding social phenomena as ‘forms’ involvesgrasping their temporal nature and impermanence and to‘present that which seems to be positive as negative’(Holloway, 1995, p.165). Secondly, viewing socialphenomena as ‘forms’ entails that they are taken to berelated internally within theory and that their modes ofdevelopment (transformations, metamorphoses) areuncovered. For example:

‘To speak of money as a form of value,to speak of value as a form of theproduct of labour, to speak of value andmoney as forms of social relations, is

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to emphasise the internal nature of therelation between value, money, labour,social relations. The apparentlyseparate ‘things’ of society (state,money, capital, and so on) are socialphenomena, forms of social relations,the interconnections between whichshould be understood not as external(causal relations, for example), but asinternal, as processes of transformationor metamorphosis.’ (Ibid., our emphases)

As well as historicity, negativity and internality, theconcept of form ‘... implies a concept of totality.’(Holloway, 1995, p.166). For:

‘If all aspects of society are to beunderstood as forms of social relations,then clearly they all form part of aninternally-related whole ...’ (Ibid.).

This point becomes particularly important for an analysisof the NETTs and the ‘learning society’. From aconsideration of method, they must be related to otheraspects of capitalist society viewed as a totality whenundertaking social analysis of contemporary society.Furthermore, if form analysis is concerned with exploringphenomena in terms of their internal relations within atotality then the notion of ‘critique’ also becomesessential to this type of analysis. Social phenomenaappear to be separate, ‘society’ seems to be fragmented,and theorists of ‘postmodernity’ and postmodernism revelin such perspectives. However, when the internalrelations of these social phenomena are theorised withina conception of the totality then this necessarilyinvolves a critique of their apparent separateness. Thus:

‘What appears to be separate (the state,money, countries and so on) can now beunderstood in terms of their separation-in-unity or unity in separation.’ (Ibid.).

On this basis, the NETTs and any emerging ‘learningsociety’ or learning city cannot be understood apart from

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other social forms within a social formation dominated bycapital.

In summary, the category of social form takes in theconcepts of historicity, negativity, internality,totality and critique in such a way that social phenomenaare portrayed as constituting a unity which isimpermanent and where appearance ‘lies’ (as apparentlyseparate phenomena are internally related). Form analysisthus undercuts and dissolves the apparent separations(within bourgeois social theory) of ‘politics’, and‘economics’ and ‘education’ (there are no separate‘fields’ requiring ‘articulation’ within theory) and alsosubject and object, agency and structure and so on.Before analysing the key social form inscribed within theNETTs process there is a need to briefly describe theorigins and history of the NETTs.

The NETTs

The NETTs originate from the Confederation of BritishIndustry (CBI) document, Towards a Skills Revolution (1989).They were updated in July 1995. The seminal targets wereofficially endorsed by ‘all government departments, theTUC, TECs/LECs’ (Sutton, 1994) and some leadingeducationalists. According to Sutton (1994, p.337), thefounding drive behind the NETTs was a perceived need toraise participation rates and attainment in British post-compulsory education and training in order to attainfavourable comparisons with our national economiccompetitors. From the inception of the NETTs, theConservative government, along with leadingrepresentatives of British capital, attempted to bind theNETTs process to a conception of the ‘learning society’where the labour power ‘needs’ of capital were taken asparamount. On this programme, the creation of a learningsociety would take place through a process of ‘skillsrevolution’. This would principally be a cultural

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revolution, creating ‘a new training culture’ in whichindividuals would be empowered with ‘real buying power’for career mobility and needs satisfaction. ‘Learning toSucceed’ - the Report of the National Commission onEducation, 1993 - endorses and elaborates on theseproposals.

To the government and CBI, a ‘learning society’ is onewhich systematically increases the skills and knowledgeof all its members to exploit technological innovationand so gain a competitive edge for their services infast-changing global markets. This is supposed to be nownecessary because the industrial competitiveness of theUK is widely accepted as being dependent upon a highlyskilled work force, able to innovate and to produce goodsand services of a high marketable value. In a competitiveglobal market it is argued that developed countries likeBritain can no longer compete in the mass production ofthe heavy industrial goods with which Britain once ledthe world as the first industrialised nation. Especiallyas newly industrialising nations, like those of thePacific rim - South Korea and Taiwan for example, the so-called Asian tigers - are followed by the ‘secondspringing tigers’, like Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam,and the giant economies of China and India.

Now in order to sell it is necessary to produce forspecialised and niche markets in high technology goodsand services. These require a workforce that iscomputerate rather than merely functionally literate andnumerate, as was needed for the first industrialrevolution. At the same time, the rapid pace of technicalchange demands workers who are flexibly able to adapt tonew technology throughout their working lives. Thecitizens of a learning society would thus exercise anindividual entitlement to lifelong learning. Educationand training would therefore no longer be ‘front-loaded’upon the young but permeate all aspects of social life.In such a ‘learning society’, individuals would be

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continually investing in their own human capital througheducation and training programmes evidenced in aportfolio of knowledge and skills that they would thentake with them to meet the next challenging job in variedand flexible careers.

Indeed, the CBI’s (1994) ‘Thinking Ahead’ celebratesthis type of occupational fluidity alongside thesuggestion that graduates should no longer expect to havesecure employment for life. Rather, they will build up aportfolio of occupational experiences moving from projectto project. Learning to learn thus becomes paramount asthis is the only constant in a constantly changing world.

This CBI version of ‘the Learning Society’ is likelyto have been influenced by the American Report of theNational Commission on Excellence in Education, ‘A Nationat Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform’, USCongress 1983, which has a section on ‘The LearningSociety’ on pp.13-15, viz.:

‘In a world of ever-acceleratingcompetition and change in the conditionsof the workplace, of ever-greaterdanger, and of ever-larger opportunitiesfor those prepared to meet them,educational reform should focus on thegoal of creating a Learning Society. Atthe heart of such a society is thecommitment to a set of values and to asystem of education that affords allmembers the opportunity to stretch theirminds to full capacity, from earlychildhood through adulthood, learningmore as the world itself changes. Such asociety has as a basic foundation theidea that education is important notonly because of what it contributes toone's career goals but also because ofthe value it adds to the general qualityof one's life. Also at the heart of theLearning Society are educationalopportunities extending far beyond thetraditional institutions of learning,

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our schools and colleges. They extendinto homes and workplaces; intolibraries, art galleries, museums, andscience centres; indeed, into everyplace where the individual can developand mature in work and life. In ourview, formal schooling in youth is theessential foundation for learningthroughout one's life. But without life-long learning, one's skills will becomerapidly dated.’

The CBI are also likely to be indebted to managementtheory recyclings of the same idea, especially by Schon’s(1971) ‘Beyond the Stable State, Public and privatelearning in a changing society’, from which comes thenotion of ‘Business firms as learning systems’ (p.61).Management theorisation is also reflected in Burgoyne,Boydell and Pedler’s (1991) - ‘The Learning Company: astrategy for sustainable development’.

The characteristically individualistic approach toskill (and knowledge) in these originals was echoed bythe CBI’s 1989 ‘Towards the Skills Revolution’ slogan‘Britain must put individuals first’. This slogan wasjustified by the assertion that ‘Individuals are now theonly source of sustainable competitive advantage’ (1989,p.9). Therefore ‘employers need to focus now onindividuals rather than groups’ because ‘with theaccelerating pace of change in the labour market, therewill be many opportunities for important career choicesthroughout a working life, allowing "careership" tobecome a reality’ (Ibid. p.21).

The idea of a learning society preparing people withflexible skills to last them through life is the visionof Sir Christopher Ball. Learning pays. As Sir ChristopherBall put it in a publication of the Royal Society of Artsin 1991:

‘The idea of a learning society offers abroad vision. It rejects privilege - theidea that it is right for birth to

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determine destiny. It transcends theprinciple of meritocracy which selectsfor advancement only those judged worthyand rejects as failures those who arenot. A learning society would be one inwhich everyone participated in educationand training (formal or informal)throughout their life.’

Whether from government and CBI or from Labour and theTrades Unions, this solution to Britain’s social andeconomic progress is believed to rest upon the relatedassumption of the need for a general ‘upskilling’ in thelabour force. However, whether the UK workforce as awhole is becoming more or less skilled and knowledgeableis debatable. Indeed, Conservative governments were oftenaccused of following a contrary policy. In seeking toattract foreign - chiefly American but, especially also,Japanese and including Arab and other far-Eastern -capital looking to invest in assembling and servicing inBritain as a bridgehead to the European heartland,successive Tory governments emphasised the virtues of thelow wage, deregulated workforce that they have tried tocreate. As a result, Britain now has the lowest labourcosts per unit output of any industrialised country, theUS being second. Similarly, work reorganisation withconsequent labour shedding (or ‘down-sizing’, i.e.redundancy) plus ‘culture change’ and workintensification for those remaining in employment, ratherthan job satisfaction for all employees, are often thegoals of employer involvement in education and trainingprogrammes. These usually accompany the introduction ofnew technology and new methods of working in theirorganisations. As a result of these policies at both thefirm and national levels, it can be argued that a processof ‘skill polarisation’ has occurred at work, togetherwith heightened academic differentiation in education.For far fewer people are now required to operatemachinery that is as phenomenally productive as it isphenomenally expensive. This has created permanent,

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structural unemployment, so that millions of people arerelegated to insecure, intermittent and semi-skilledemployment if they are lucky. Education and training havebeen expanded to take up the slack (Aronowitz andDiFazio, 1994). On the one side, are those with specialeducational needs and on programmes requiringparticipation in training or work experience as acondition of receipt of welfare or unemployment benefits.On the other, are those whose pre-existing culturalcapital is legitimated by elite higher education. Betweenthese two groups are the mass of students and trainees,adults as well as younger people, whose participation ineducation and training is often prompted by unemployment.This has implications for the motivation that is widelyrecognised as crucial to learning.

This may be the reality of the situation on theground, yet the new ‘learning society’ rhetoric is givenadditional currency by the equally widely accepted ideathat a second industrial revolution is underway today.Spurred by the latest applications of computerelectronics, society is supposedly progressing from areliance upon the raw materials of nature to a neweconomy in which information is the sole source of wealthand power. History is thus alleged to have moved beyondindustrialism, or at least beyond industry organisedalong the lines of mass production. This third phase ofsocial evolution (following first agriculture and thenindustry) is accompanied by its own wave of technologicaldevelopment (micro-electronics following petro-chemicalsand the original iron and steel). So it is now seriouslysuggested that whole societies can exist by their membersexchanging information with one another and that to dothis everyone in ‘post-industrial’ or ‘informationsociety’ must acquire high level technical skills andtheoretical knowledge. In this scenario it is not usuallyacknowledged that such societies can only exist at theexpense of other, less advanced, countries which have tosupply them with food, fuel and manufactured goods.

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Recently, a few dissenting voices have questioned thesupposed links between developments in informationtechnology, changes in the labour process and the labourmarket and a perceived need for up/re-skilling through a‘learning society’ driven by the NETTs and the newqualifications structure (G/NVQs) of the National Councilfor Vocational Qualifications. For example, the economistPeter Robinson, on the basis of a comprehensive 1994review of the comparative economic indicators:

‘casts doubt on the link which isusually postulated to exist betweenrelative skills attainment and relativeproductivity levels in the whole economyand manufacturing’.

His findings are at odds with the widely acceptedposition of his former employers at the NationalInstitute of Economic and Social Research that Britain'sskills base lags behind that of other countries withsimilar living standards. His interpretation of skillwould in fact reverse the rankings of Britain and Francein this regard and `probably' that of Britain and theNetherlands. In terms of these official rankings however,despite a decade of change and innovation in vocationaleducation and training, Britain was placed 35th foreducation and 40th for motivation to train for new jobsin a league table of 49 developed countries, according tothe World Competitiveness Report compiled by a think tankand a management institute, both based in Switzerland(reported in The Times Educational Supplement of 8.9.1995).Doubts about the performance and effectiveness ofBritain’s education and training systems are well-placedgiven that Britain has slipped from 14th to 18th in theleague of global competitiveness ‘... largely because ofthe quality of the work force and the inadequateeducation system.’ (MacLeod, 1996). Such doubts do notassail the advocates of the aptly named NETTs for whomthese ‘targets’ offer a means of attempting to run bymeans of ‘management by objectives’ a national economy

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that they have already allowed to be deregulated out oftheir own control.

This sub-section has put forward a case for viewingthe NETTs as being linked to a narrow, economistic viewof the ‘learning society’ which in turn is linked to theConservative government’s economic ‘strategy’ of forginga highly credentialised, de-regulated, low wage, lowemployment rights, insecure and fear-inducing Britishlabour market which will suck in foreign (especially farEastern) capital. However, the specific capitalist formof the NETTs has not been located. As Marx (1975) notedin the first volume of Theories of Surplus Value, the essence ofform analysis in the exploration of capitalist society isto view social developments ‘from the standpoint ofcapital’. But what does this mean in relation to theNETTs?

NETTs as Capitalist Form

Viewing the NETTs as capitalist form requires a detourinto what James Avis has called the ‘New Consensus’. Avis(1993a,b) has pointed to a new orthodoxy emerging aroundthe need to raise the quality of British labour power.The movers and shakers behind this New Consensus do notuse the term ‘labour power’ (but rather ‘human capital’,‘skills’, ‘competence’ and other referents to theattributes of effective labour) but it amounts to thesame thing through translation. Avis (1993a) points to a‘new settlement’ on post-compulsory education andtraining which stretches from the TUC, Labour and LiberalParties, through the CBI and the Conservative party whichasserts the need to raise the quality of skills andcompetences amongst the British workforce (read labourpower) in order to enhance British competitiveness inworld markets. As Avis notes:

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‘We have the generation of an alliancethat has the potential to form a newsettlement amongst a range ofconstituencies who have an interest inpost-compulsory VET.’ (1993a, p.251 -VET: vocational education and training).

Particular factions of this New Consensus take shots atthe policies, projected means and deliberations ofattaining the goal - but the goal of gaining ground inworld markets through enhancing the quality of Britishlabour power has takers from all sides.

No doubt the NCVQ, many college principals and vice-chancellors of universities share in the New Consensus.As Gilbert Jessup (1995) of the NCVQ notes:

‘... there is widespread recognitionthat we need to raise the standards ...[of post-16 provision] ... across thewhole cohort to prepare young peoplemore effectively for employment in amodern economy. ...[For] ... in linewith most industrialized countries, andmany emerging countries in the thirdworld, there is a consensus in the UKthat we need to increase participationin full-time education within the 16-19age group.’ (p.34 - our emphasis).

Jessup is pointing to an international as well as a purelyBritish dimension to the New Consensus.

Avis, in another paper (1993b), has also included‘left curriculum modernisers’ within the New Consensuswho also wish to promote the quality of British labourpower in order to regenerate the economy. Through acritique of Brown and Lauder (1991, 1992), who see aradical potential for the prospects of the Britisheconomy, high-trust labour relations and better livingstandards for workers in their support for a movementtowards a Post-Fordist economy and society, Avis makes itclear that they sanction a capitalist modernisation whichis in line with other supporters of the New Consensus.

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Where Brown and Lauder differ from some within the NewConsensus camp is on questions of industrial democracyand worker empowerment (which Avis believes is wishfulthinking anyway).

The New Consensus has deep roots. It is at thefoundation of the TEC/LEC movement (locally andnationally). It appears as common-sense. Avis (1993b)critiques the New Consensus as part of a process ofmasking social divisions and inequalities. However, heaccepts that the New Consensus, including its leftcurricular modernisers are:

‘... committed to a capitalist societythat aims to develop human potential toserve not society’s needs but those ofcapital accumulation.’ (1993b, p.12).

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However, this final comment from Avis drifts off intoidealist Left critique as society’s ‘needs’ cannot beabstracted from capital accumulation, only because thissociety is a capitalist society, unless a Utopia orideal-type is set against ‘society’ as it is, actuallyexisting capitalist society. There is a social need (fromthe ‘standpoint of capital’) within contemporarycapitalist societies (in competition), and especially inBritain with its poor post-16 education and trainingrecord, which calls for enhanced labour power quality inorder to compete on the international economic stage. Butwhat is the material dynamic behind this new shift toenhance the quality of human labour power, the capacityof labourers to labour? The theory of globalisationenters at this point.

Globalisation theory is an academically hot topic. Ithas been analysed in terms of: relations between local,national and international identities; changing relationsbetween nation states in a new global market context; thepolitical decline of states through the rise of supra-national bodies and much, much more. However, untilrecently, the concept of globalisation has had littleimpact on debates in education, but this is changingrapidly. Brown and Lauder (forthcoming, 1996) placeglobalisation at the heart of understanding some trendsand developments in education and training.

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They point to the new ‘rules of economic competition’thrown open by the post-communist rise of the globalmarket. In addition they point to two central aspects ofthis process. Firstly, computerisation and de-regulationof financial markets means that capital in its money-formcan hurtle around the globe at incredible (andincreasing) speeds and with ever fewer restrictions.Secondly, globalisation also means an increasinglyrestless movement of capital in the form of means ofproduction across national boundaries, with industrialre-location and the movement of plant to countriesoffering optimum conditions. In these conditions, it is‘human capital’ (read labour power) which remains relativelyspatially stable (taking migration into account). Mostworkers of specific nation states stay within nationalboundaries for most of their working lives. It is capitalthat is fickle and restless. Thus, there is a dynamic bycontemporary capitalist states to increase the quality ofhuman labour powers within their borders - for a numberof reasons:

Firstly, in order to make the national capital moreproductive through employing better quality labourpower than other national competitors (and theliterature on post-compulsory education and trainingrepeats this point ad nauseum).

Secondly, and this is particularly important forBritain, it increases the chances of capturing andholding onto foreign capital through directinvestments. The British economic strategy ofattracting overseas firms (especially Japanese ones) toour shores is a prime example of this.

Thirdly, the quality of labour power is important interms of holding onto long-established national firms,or firms that are becoming multi- or transnational.

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Finally, the quality of labour power is crucial for thecontinual, change, innovation and anarchy of thecontemporary industrial and commercial scene.References to the need for increased ‘flexibility’ and‘adaptability’ of workers in the new climate attest tothis.

Richard Layard (1995) has recently pointed to theroots of this new dynamic which leads to attempts bynation states to raise the quality of national labourpower to new heights:

‘With capital today moving freelybetween countries, the prosperity of apeople depends on what does not move: thepeople themselves. Productivity growsfaster in those countries where thepeople have high skills relative totheir level of income.’ (our emphasis)

It is argued later that the new dynamic to enhance thequality of human labour power within national capitals,brought about, since 1989, by globalisation and theestablishment of a world market based on the accumulationof capital for the first time in world history, ushers ina new phase of capital accumulation.

An emerging form of the production of surplus-valuenow rests on this new dynamic. Only a brief summary ofthis emergent form can be given here. In the earliestphase of capitalism, what Marx called Manufacture,absolute surplus-value production was the dominant form ofthe production of surplus-value within the labourprocess. Basically, this involved two things: extendingthe working day (which has obvious limits); and, theintensification of work through strong and brutaldiscipline systems. This form of surplus-value extractionnever disappears. It is a strategy that can always beused. Indeed, the length of the working day and week hasincreased in the United States since the 1950s, so thatnow, American workers work a full month longer they didthen. However, this strategy is inherently unstable as it

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puts the whole working class (on which the transformationof labour into capital rests) at risk if pursued with toomuch vigour.

The extraction of absolute surplus-value wassuperseded by relative surplus-value production. Whenrelative surplus-value production is dominant (andscience and technology become incorporated into thelabour process on an expanded scale), then we have whatMarx called Modern Industry. This involves substitutingmachinery (in increasingly automated then computerisedforms) for labour in such a way that the productivity oflabour is enhanced and the value representing the wagecan be attained quicker - leaving a greater proportion ofthe working day-week etc. to the production of surplus-value which is not represented in the wage.

However, Marx did not explore a third possibility(probably as national systems of education and trainingwere in their infancy), that the quality of labour power itselfcould be raised which would also lead to increasedproductivity and hence shortening the time for necessarylabour which manifests itself as the value produced whichis incorporated within the wage. This might be called theoppositional form of surplus-value production (though allthree forms of surplus-value production rest onconflictual social relations between capital and wagelabour). It is especially oppositional because it is basedon the very commodity, labour power, which is owned bythe worker and hence partly under her/his control.Furthermore, its impacts upon wage labour directly asprocesses of socially producing labour power cannot beseparated (like labour power itself) from the person ofthe labour. It is an assault upon the person, a processpremised upon the person becoming, to varying degrees,capital. Labour power, that ‘abominable concept’, merelyexpresses the degree to which aspects of personhood(‘body’, ‘consciousness’ and personal attributes) becomesubsumed under the projects and goals of capital. This

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form of surplus-value extraction is a risky strategy (asthe wills of workers cannot be totally subsumed,otherwise they would cease to be human), but one whichnational capitals and individual firms are increasinglyforced (by international competition) to embark upon. Itis this development which is part of the materialsubstratum which underpins calls for a ‘learningsociety’. Where does all this leave the NETTs then?

The NETTs are a key component of the New Consensus,and hence, at the heart of the drive to raise the qualityof human labour power. The also assume an economicnationalist as well as capitalist social form; they areconcerned with raising the quality of human labour powerthroughout the national capital (relative to that ofother national capitals). This in turn, is related to theemergence (amongst the leading capitalist countries andsome of the Asian Tigers in particular) of the oppositionalform of surplus-value extraction. These considerationsframe the NETTs as capitalist form. Thus, when the‘learning society’ is viewed through the NETTsperspective it degenerates into this capitalist socialform and the NETTs process, and the whole New Consensusof which it is a component, are circumscribed by thelabour power needs of British capital.

Locally, the national targets programme isunderwritten by TECs and, in particular, furthereducation colleges. During 1993-94, a National AdvisoryCouncil for Education and Training Targets wasestablished (Bennett, Wicks and McCoshan, 1994). TheCouncil’s remit was to:

‘... monitor progress towards theNational Targets for Education andTraining; to advise Government onperformance and policies which influenceprogress towards the Targets; to providebusiness leadership in raising skilllevels and increasing employer

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commitment to the Targets.’ (NACETT,1995, p.10).

A parallel Council, SACETT (re-named the AdvisoryScottish Council for Education and Training Targets -ASCETT), was set up to monitor progress regarding theNETTs in Scotland. Locally, TECs/LECs are given their owntargets in consultation with the Training, Education andEnterprise Directorate (TEED) and have a responsibility,in conjunction with local colleges through LocalStrategic Forums for ‘.. co-ordinating local action inpursuit of their targets...’ (FEU, 1993, p.1). Local areaaction plans are drawn up and also action plans forparticular colleges. However, a moral responsibility fordelivering the targets has also been conferred upon anumber of organisations and bodies by the NationalAdvisory Council for Education and Training Targets(NACETT). NACETT has brought many ‘national partnerorganisations’ into the NETTs process.

The NACETT Report for 1995 describes the action plansand progress that these ‘national partner organisations’have made in their efforts to contribute towards themeeting the National Targets. In total, 28 partnerorganisations have made action plans and specificcommitments in the efforts to embed the Targetsthroughout the national economy. These include:Association for Colleges; the Association of MetropolitanAuthorities; Confederation of British Industry; EqualOpportunities Commission; NCVQ; OFSTED; Royal Society ofArts; Secondary Heads Association; TEC National Council;Trades Union Congress; Welsh Office - a wide-ranging setof partners.

The CBI/Conservative government’s view of the‘learning society’ as a ‘skills revolution’ isunderwritten by all of this activity around the NETTs. Somuch so, that, in the absence of the emergence of anyconcrete alternative ‘learning society’, the effectiveand practical ‘learning society’ is that which is

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following the Conservative government’s and CBI’s ‘skillsrevolution’ trajectory - a process where the NETTs, ascapitalist social form regarding the drive to raise therelative quality of human labour power throughout thenational capital, becomes the operative mode of existenceof the ‘learning society’. A capitalist form of the‘learning society’ is coming to take on an actualexistence in and through the NETTs. Practically, the lifeof the future ‘learning society’ is being sucked into theNETTs whirlpool by the minute.

The NETTs process also engenders another degeneratingelement. Any learning as process element becomesincreasingly lost sight of through the scramble forqualifications. The NETTs encourage a crasscredentialism. The ‘learning society’ takes on a real,actual existence - but in a perverted form as a certifiedsociety with the scramble for qualifications taken asproxy for any ‘learning’.

A Certified, Not A Learning SocietyIn place of, or rather in addition to, what Green (1986)called ‘tertiary modern FE’, new divisions within andbetween schools and FE were foreshadowed in the 1993Dearing Review of the National Curriculum and are likelyto be confirmed - if softened with provision for‘progression’ and ‘transfer’ - in the latest rewriting ofthe Review. The split can occur between an academic and anon-academic sixth form, or between school sixth formsand FE, or within different FE courses. The distinctionsbetween ‘A’-levels, general NVQs (once called ‘vocational“A”-levels’) and NVQs, is mirrored in training bydivisions between professional education and one of thelast inventions of the Employment Department - ‘ModernApprenticeships’ to NVQ level 3, alongside Youth Training(also now seemingly referred to as ‘apprenticeship’) to

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NVQ level 2, or no qualification at all, which is theoutcome for half of courses at this level.

The present unholy alliance in government educationpolicy between the neo-conservative authoritarian andfree-market factions of the ruling Party is based on the‘promise’ that the market will deliver grammar schoolsand save ‘A’-levels as the guarantee of ‘quality HE’.This ‘deal’ has in a few short years producedunprecedented chaos through unregulated competitionbetween and within HE, FE, tertiary and sixth-formcolleges, schools and schemes.

Chaos would be even more compounded if an attempt weremade to level the playing field for costs of maintainingstudents in school sixth forms as opposed to FE - asproposed in the 1995 ‘Competitiveness Mark 2’ White Paper(HMG 1995). With devolved budgets it is difficult toestimate even the average cost of school sixth-formstudents. However, in the small sixth forms that manyschools are building up below the viable size of c.200 -often, one suspects, at the expense of pupils lower downthe school - the DfE preliminary guestimated costs of£991 per ‘A’-level unit in LEA and £1017 per ‘A’-levelunit in GM schools (equals £2874 and £2949 p.a.respectively). This is undoubtedly more expensive onaverage than the level of funding per student at the 450or so further, tertiary, sixth-form, art and agriculturalcolleges. By contrast, the annual cost of a YouthTraining allowance equalled £1534 for the first year and£1820 for the second, though Modern Apprenticeships -under which YT has lately been misleadingly subsumed -were originally ‘envisaged’ by the ED as a ‘qualityscheme’ costing on average £7000 each p.a. plus employercontributions.

Despite the ‘attractiveness’ that the government'sfirst ‘Competitiveness’ White Paper (HMG, 1994) saw ‘inproviding all 16-19 year olds with Learning Credits withreal cash value’, there was plainly the usual logjam in

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policy between the ED and the DfE. The former EmploymentDepartment favoured extending its version of voucherscalled ‘Training Credits’ as a means of funding post-16‘learning entitlement’. However, it could not show itspilots for these had been anything other than superfluousat best (Hodkinson and Sparkes, 1994; Youthaid andNATFHE, 1993). Meanwhile the DfE’s student loans systemalso plainly does not work. Shephard has however alreadybeen prevailed upon to introduce vouchers for nurseryplaces. In a merged department further voucherisationwill predictably go the DfE’s way, giving those parentswith the money power to bring back grammar schools,subsidise private schooling and preserve ‘A’-levels and‘quality’ HE. This is a policy of going backwards intothe future (‘retromodernism’, as Green and Rikowski(1995) call it, or Hall’s (1995) “regressivemodernisation”), as opposed to reliance upon the marketto deliver some sort of real economic modernisation whichwas favoured by the old ED supported by the CBI.

The ideal solution from the government point of viewwould be for students to take out a loan for theirlearning credit/voucher (as proposed by the ConservativePolitical Centre in October ‘95), though a compromisemight be a basic ‘learning entitlement’ - such as theLabour Party is suggesting for adults - with loans (orprivate resources) to ‘top-up’ on particular courses atvarious institutions. One could even imagine a ‘learningsociety’ in which no one was ever unemployed but only‘learning’ - rather as Youth Training supposedly endedunemployment for 16-18 year olds! In fact, with the JobSeeker’s Allowance due to be introduced in October 1996,the unemployed will officially cease to exist, redefinedas ‘Job Seekers’. And, under the 1995 Job Seeker’s Act,the powers of compulsion given to Employment Servicesstaff make most government training schemes compulsory,including direction into education courses. This amountsto workfare - work for benefits, as in the USA - and ends

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any notion of entitlement to benefits as social insurance(see Finn, 1995).

Nevertheless, the rush to expand educationalopportunities at all levels is virtually universallyapplauded (but see Robinson 1995, Shackleton 1995, andHutton 1996, for dissenting voices), especially byeducational providers whose approbation may not betotally disinterested. Yet already education and trainingare heavily implicated in not only maintaining old socialdivisions but in creating new ones particularly throughthe certification - or rather the lack of it - of a so-called ‘underclass’. This new ‘rough’ is divided from the‘respectable’ working-middle of society by, among otherthings, the lack of worthwhile qualification. The newknowledge policy is therefore contributing, throughcredentialism and qualification inflation, to a certifiedsociety which is not necessarily the same thing as alearning one.

The impossible is being demanded - more for less. A‘learning society’ is not going to be produced by sackingteachers and lecturers, increasing class sizes andclosing colleges. The market is producing mayhem. Yet thegovernment argue that - in education and training, aselsewhere - competition is more efficient than democraticaccountability. Moreover, the new standards which arebeing aimed at are absolute ones, derived from industryin the case of NVQs. In the National Curriculum too,different ‘levels’ are ‘bench-marked’ against AttainmentTargets. Britain is the first country to introduce thiscompetence-based assessment on such a scale (Wolf, 1994).What is becoming the bureaucratic juggernaut of the NCVQmay achieve precisely the opposite of its intention.Wasting the knowledge and skills of the minority of coreworkers, it may oversee the deskilling of the rest forintermittent, semiskilled (un)employment, producingprecisely what Prais predicted in a 1988 discussion paper

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for the NIESR - ‘a certificated semi-literateunderclass’.

In a series of papers, Ainley and Green (1995a,b,c and1996) have characterised the piling-high outlook of theNETTs process as the degeneration of the ‘learningsociety’ into a certified society. As means(qualifications) usurp ends (learning and the applicationof learning for the betterment of humanity, the well-being of individuals and groups and enjoyment and self-development). They are argue that:

‘The new learning policy is ...contributing, through credentialism andqualification inflation, to a newcertified society not a learning one.’(1995b, pp.2-3).

In the frenzy to ‘catch up with our competitors’ in termsof labour power quality - and qualifications are onlycrude indicators of some attributes of labour power - theNETTs process has de-railed any more meaningful versionof the learning society.

On McKenzie’s (1995) analysis, the NETTs can be viewedas part of what she calls ‘the process of excluding‘education’ from the public sphere.’ Debates abouteducation are being increasingly reduced to debates withinthe New Consensus discourse and, within formal localarenas, specifically about the NETTs. An example of thiscan be viewed in a recent report written by theBirmingham Economic Information Centre (1995) where thechapter on education and training was only about whereBirmingham stood in relation to the NETTs.

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Social Trajectories and Social BecomingThe analysis above illustrates how the ‘learning society’concept is in danger of going down a social trajectorywhose mode of existence is as capitalist form, where theattributes of the person are systematically reduced tothe attributes of labour power, where economicconsiderations shape the form and content of the emerging‘learning society’ and where the NETTs and the mission ofthe NCVQ place an unnatural barrier on both thedevelopment of any worthwhile learning society andpolicies for framing a learning city. In practical terms,it is difficult to see any putative learning citymanaging to avoid the NETTs, given the mechanisms alreadyin place for supporting the NETTs process. However, thesocial trajectory along which we are travelling, movingtowards a ‘learning society’ dominated by capital, theNew Consensus and the NETTs, is not an unstoppablejuggernaut painted with fatalism, manipulation andcynicism. This can be seen through exploring certaindebates within recent Nietzschean scholarship on theissue of personal ‘becoming’.

A number of writers (Cooper, 1983; Aviram, 1991;Rosenow, 1986,1989) have noted the importance of‘becoming’, self-realisation and self-overcoming inrelation to Nietzsche’s views on education. Nietzsche’soriginal concept of becoming was framed in relation toindividuals. He exhorted his readers in Ecce Homo to ‘BecomeWhat You Are!’. This implies at least two things.Firstly, that there is a possibility of becoming what weare not. And, secondly, that we have some choice in thematter.

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But what kind of choice? Nietzsche held that what wehave become up to the present was no accident. It waspossible, through a process of rigorous self-understanding and self-knowledge, to appropriate, withinthought, the social, physical and psychological forcesthat had made one ‘what one was’ up to the moment.Nevertheless, despite this ‘determinism’, contingency waspresent as human beings could exert choice as to the‘laws’ that governed their individual and collectiveexistence. Ernest Joos (1987) articulates this point fromthe opposite direction:

‘... events can be considered contingentonly if free choice is postulated. Ofcourse, the assumption of a more or lessfree choice does not exclude occurrencesof determinism ... But we can alwaysmaintain, in these cases we encounter animpaired freedom; only individuals whocannot free themselves from theinfluence of material causes anddominant ideologies are reallydetermined.’ (Joos, 1987, p.7)

Thus, social and psychological ‘laws’ are operative inrelation to the forms of individual and collective life,but they can be changed. This is the moment of ‘freedom’and contingency, but, after the transformation, new‘laws’ operate on human beings and they become somethingwhich, previously, they were not.

As Thiele (1990) notes, the inner drives ofindividuals, according to Nietzsche, were unalterable(p.210). Individuals could not create new drives, butthey could re-arrange their drives to form a higherunity, so that they were less the playthings of theirinner drives. The choice, upon undertaking this self-analysis, was whether to continue along the same path,the same route, in life, to follow one’s past trajectory,and ‘become what one was’ to a higher degree, or tochange tack through stimulating/controlling other drives.If the latter choice was taken then one would become

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someone who, up to that point, one was not. Ultimately to‘become what you are’ is to travel along the highesttrajectory (and the ranking of life trajectories, as Owen(1995) shows, is linked to Nietzsche’s conception of‘life’, the revaluation of values and his doctrines ofthe eternal return and the overman) that one could reachduring a lifetime. The ‘final’ (in terms of ‘highest’,not necessary chronological - one could descend intodecadence) trajectory is not the ultimate one. There isno end point (Nehemas, 1985, p.170) - the ‘highest’trajectory is subsumed under the others, and hence theywere steps on the way to what one actually ‘becomes’ onthe highest trajectory short of death. As Nietzscheexplains in The Will to Power (1968): ‘Becoming does not aimat a final state, does not flow into “being” ...’(p.378). There are ‘no terminal forms of evolution’(Ibid.).

As well as Nietzschean personal becoming, writers suchas Sztompka (1991) have elaborated a theory of socialbecoming. Thus: ‘we become what we are’. Sztompka appearsto have cast his theory of social becoming withoutreference to Nietzsche. However, the sketch of personalbecoming above, drawing heavily upon Nietzscheanscholarship, can form the basis of an approach to socialbecoming.

Backtracking to Nietzsche, it was held that onebecomes ‘what one is’ as a result of past experience.Likewise, social becoming must be about all the socialforces that have shaped society as it is to the present,but which includes a collective will (and there any manyforms of this - it is integral to the form of thedominant trajectory) to travel along a certaintrajectory. Collectively, at the societal level, we‘become what we are through willing what we become’. Itfollows from this that only through collective willingfor a shift to another trajectory, which is inscribedwithin collective action to refashion society, can we

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collectively become that which previously we were not -and collectively forge new values, new institutions and anew society.

Just as a Nietzschean individual’s ‘becoming’ islocked into past social and physical practice, then sothe same holds for social becoming. At this point,Nietzsche meets Marx, for what we are after are theforces, ‘laws’ and social relations which provide agrounding for the trajectory, the ‘becoming’. Marx foundthese in his analysis of capitalism. For Marx, all formsof ‘becoming’ (personal, cultural, social - collective)attained a capitalist form as capital was the dominantforce conditioning all social relations within the socialtotality. Capitalist modernity cannot move in anydirection (as facile postmodernists believe). Itstrajectory is set by social ‘laws’ such as the law ofvalue, the falling rate of profit and so on, as well asthe social forms which weld capitalism into a unity.Furthermore, institutions have limits set to them bytheir capitalist forms.

Now, when it comes to characterising the capitalistnature of these social forms, for example, the capitalistform of schooling, little work has been done. However,the work of Holloway (1994) and Bonefeld (1994) providesclues as to the sort of work that needs to be done. Theyboth argue that the reproduction of capital is dependentupon labour but that the reproduction of labour is notdependent on capital - which gets the defeats of the lastfifteen years into perspective. On the other hand, labourexists both in, against and beyond capital. Labour isobjectified by capital, but the fact that workers haveconsciousness and a will (and the transformation oflabour power into labour rests on this) sets limits tothis process, whilst through collective action andwilling there is always - even in the darkest hour - thepossibility of radical change short of death.

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Furthermore, Gunn (1994) argues against thetheoretical practice, so prevalent within sociology, ofseparating ‘society’ into distinct social realms orspheres (such as ‘education’, ‘work’, ‘leisure’ and soon). This hands postmodernists the butter as it is ashort step from here to arguing for the fragmentation ofsociety, normative dissonance, the death of ‘community’and ‘society’ and the irrelevance of grand (or otherwise)narratives. Given the apparent increasing fragmentationof society, this orientation to theory makespostmodernism respectable. Although this heighteneddegree of fragmentation makes life difficult for thosewho still work within Marxist theory, the task has stillnot, substantially, altered, which is:

‘To trace out the inner connectionbetween social phenomena ... [which isto theorise] ... the human content whichconstitutes their social reality asinterconnected, as complex forms,different forms, but united in, eachother.’ (Bonefeld, 1994, p.45).

Thus, in examining the capitalist form of the NETTs orany putative ‘learning society’ or ‘learning city’, fromthe perspective being developed here we would beinterested in tracing the movement and relations betweenthese social forms and others within the social totality- with the aim of understanding and changing them to thebenefit of wage labour. The form that the NETTs and anyemerging ‘learning societies’ and ‘learning cities’ havetaken so far, their capitalist forms, are not inevitable.Just as Nietzschean individuals can call a halt and takea new path (though the trajectories are socially de-limited and conditioned), so, collectively, it ispossible for us to transcend capitalist forms of personaland social development. “We have it in our power to makethe world anew” - as Thomas Paine said. Ranson’s theoryof the learning society rests on these points.

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44

Learning Society as New Demos

To view the theory of the learning society as a theory ofsocial becoming avoids two fatal alternatives. On the onehand, as Rikowski (1995) has shown, a materialistperspective on the learning society results in thelearning society becoming a mere phase in the developmentof capitalism where the oppositional form of surplus-value production emerges as a new social form. Ourargument about the NETTs and the ‘learning society’ aslearning for work is merely a special case of this moregeneral argument. On the other hand, as Hatcher (1995)and Rikowski (1995) have pointed out, there is also atendency for discourse about the learning society todescend into various forms of idealism and Utopianism,where visions of the learning society of the future arespun out of wishes and desires for ‘things to be better’,for real learning and so on, without either connectingthese to the nature and form of existing capitalistsociety or specifying mechanisms, means and strategiesfor moving towards the Promised Land.

Read as a theory of social becoming, the writings ofStewart Ranson (1994) and with John Stewart (1994) can beseen to avoid the Scylla of the materialist view of thelearning society as capitalist form and the Charybdis ofthe learning society as disconnected idealism andUtopianism. This section of the paper provides asimultaneous summary and interpretation of Ranson’s viewof the learning society embedded within a theory ofsocial becoming.

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Stewart Ranson is the only social and educationaltheorist to have written extensively on the learningsociety in this country. We have the cameos, sketches andfragments as noted above, but in Towards the Learning Society(Ranson, 1994) and Management for the Public Domain: Enabling theLearning Society (Ranson and Stewart, 1994) together with animportant article Towards the Learning Society (Ranson, 1992) wehave a substantial body of text on the theory of thelearning society. Two points must be emphasised. Firstly,this body of writing must be assessed as a whole. If thisis not done then charges of idealism can be justifiablymade. For example, Hatcher (1995) shows how a reading ofRanson’s Towards the Learning Society (1994) alone can bepresented as idealism and Utopianism. Secondly, Ranson’swork on the learning society is far from complete, thoughManagement for the Public Domain takes us beyond Hatcher’sidealist charge it still leaves open some importantissues, which Hatcher also raises - such as how Ranson’slearning society connects with actually existingcapitalism. However, there is a problem of being toospecific about the form and content of the learningsociety from Ranson’s perspective as, for Ranson, it isactive, participative citizenship for democracy that is atthe heart of his conception of the learning society.Thus, the detail of the learning society can only fully beworked out by citizens, social groups and public bodiesengaged in open, agonistic debate and policy-formation.Ranson’s view of the learning society logically precludesany blue- or redprint. All he can do is to set out theguiding principles, purposes and goals of a learningsociety and then tell us how these can becomematerialised in social practices, reforms and initiativeswhich underpin a movement (hence the emphasis on socialtrajectories and becoming) towards the learning society.This is what he actually does.

Towards the Learning Society

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In his book of the same title and his 1992 paper, Ransonsets out a number of guiding principles which mustunderpin and ground any worthwhile learning society. Thestatus of these principles is that they nurtureindividuals who are themselves capable of activelyparticipating in the very creation of the learningsociety (Ranson, 1994). Thus, Ranson is not in the gameof framing a blueprint society which, upon its creation,will then give space to the individuals who will sustainit and drive it forward on the learning societytrajectory. This point is made clear in the following:

‘The creation of a moral and politicalorder that expresses and enables anactive citizenship within the publicdomain is the challenge of the modernera. The task is to regenerate orconstitute more effectively than everbefore a public - an educated public -that has the capacity to participate actively ascitizens in the shaping of a learning society andpolity.’ (Ranson, 1994, p.105)

Hence, the kind of individuals required to shape and formthe learning society, and to give it content(institutions, organisations, networks, laws,constitutional reforms and so on) must come first. Thelearning society cannot be imposed from above (throughthe NETTs and NCVQ for example), as, by definition, alearning society includes individual and collective queststo put content into the form. What is required though, issome evidence that active, participative learners canemerge prior to and alongside the emergence of thelearning society.

Is there any such evidence? Fortunately, part of theagenda of the New Consensus contains a radical element(Avis, 1993a). The current rhetoric on active learning,student-centred learning, resource-based learning,learning how to learn, students as customers, a concernwith student progression, the accreditation of priorlearning (which brings learning and ‘life’ closer

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together), modularisation, unitisation, creditaccumulation schemes and even apparently unpromisingstuff on ‘quality’ in education - all can be used toprovide space for the active learners of the future(though Avis, 1993a,b is sceptical and pessimistic onthis last point). Ranson views active learning and activelearners in the following way:

‘If learning is to be effective itshould motivate ... people by engagingtheir interests and by being related totheir experience. The process ofteaching, moreover, should seek toinvolve students in, and negotiate withthem, a process of active andcollaborative learning ...’ (1992,p.73).

These active learners and processes of active learning,unfortunately, have to be engendered and enhanced intoday’s educational environment. Thus, the inadequaciesof current educational arrangements must be subverted,and there is always some space for this. The task is totake hold of the ‘progressive’ aspects of the NewConsensus rhetoric and make it mean something in relationto the nurturing of active learning and active learners,self-development and societal progress and socialbetterment through actively working and campaigning for anew demos. Indeed, Ranson (1992) argues that his model ofthe learning society was not developed out of thin airbut was a construction from developments drawn from theradical aspects of the New Consensus and excitingexamples he had witnessed in urban education and trainingfrom his research experience.

The theory of the learning society, for Ranson, hasthree elements which make for the nurturing ofindividuals who will become the principal creators of thelearning society of the future. Firstly, there arecertain presuppositions which state the need for and thepurpose of the learning society; secondly, principles which

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provide the organising characteristics of the theory;and, thirdly, purposes and conditions which establish the‘... agenda for change that can create the values andconditions for a learning society.’ (1992, p.75).

Regarding the presuppositions of the learning society,the following are significant according to Ranson( adapted from 1994, p.106): the values and process of learning at placed at the centreof the polity (politics as learning);

a revaluation of learning such that there is a commitment tolearning flowing throughout all major institutions andorganisations (public and private);

the democratisation of learning in the sense that significantlearning is viewed as active and participative (as defineabove);

a celebration of openness to new ideas which are tested inthe public domain through debate in open forums;

reflexivity through critically reflecting and evaluatingchange throughout the social formation.

These presuppositions can also function as criteria orstandards for determining the extent to which a learningsociety has developed and is currently being developed(through education, economic and social policies).

There are two central principles which act as organisingelements within the theory of the learning societyaccording to Ranson (Ibid., p.106): citizenship - establishes the ontology, the mode of being, for

individuals in the learning society and the right of theseindividuals to shape the learning society as it unfolds. Itconfers rights for self-development and responsibilitiesfor ensuring that the personal powers and capacitiesdeveloped through the emerging learning society are usedfor the well-being of the citizenry as a whole;

and, practical reason which places the actions of individualswithin the context of their effects on the social totalityand thus involves: (a) deliberation (reflexivity, criticalreflection), (b) sound judgement (determining appropriateends in light of the presuppositions above), and, (c)learning through action to realise the good in practice.

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(Ranson, 1994, pp.106-107).

Ranson makes it clear that citizenship is developedthrough the exercise of practical reason.

The third element of the theory of the learningsociety for Ranson is the purposes and conditions whichguide the agenda for change for the learning society.These purposes and conditions are necessary in order thatthe learning society does not degenerate into some otherform of society. They keep the learning society on itssocial trajectory. For this third moment:

‘... new values and conceptions oflearning are valued within the publicdomain at the level of the self (a questfor self-discovery), at the level ofsociety (in the learning of mutualitywithin a moral order) and at the levelof the polity (in learning the qualities ofa participative democracy).’ (Ranson,1994, p.107 - his emphases).

Ranson then goes on to discuss these three parts of thethird element of his theory of the learning society inturn: the conditions for the learning self (1994, pp.107-108); the social conditions for learning (pp.109-110);and conditions in the polity (pp.110-111). Thus, even inhis 1994 book Ranson takes us beyond idealism in thesediscussions of some of the practicalities of bringingabout the learning society. His discussion on the‘conditions in the polity’ points towards the need formajor constitutional reform aimed at revitalising amoribund British democracy with the aim of creating aculture that values debate ‘and the practice of publicdiscussion’ (1994, p.112). However, it is in his workwith John Stewart that the practical issues involved inenabling the learning society are most fully addressed,and it is to this work that we now turn.

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Enabling the Learning Society

In his book with John Stewart (1994) Stewart Ransonoperationalises some of the presuppositions, principlesand values underpinning the learning society as outlinedin his earlier work. This enterprise begins fromrethinking the nature of the public domain.

In order to enable the learning society, Ranson andStewart formulate a set of organising principles which‘... will need to constitute the purposes, conditions andtasks of the public domain.’ (p.88). The first principleinvolves the opening up of public discourse as ‘...public discourse provides both the source for and thetest of action in the public domain ...’ (p.92). Avibrant and open public discourse sets the conditions forcollective choice and this ultimately results in informedpublic action. Secondly, the legitimacy of public action mustrest on ‘consent through accountability’ (p.93). Thissecond principle is related to the first; organisationsin the public domain must be required to give publicaccounts of their actions which are open to scrutiny,critical appraisal and change or emendation. Thirdly,there must be a set of principles which regulate thepolitical process and collective choice and guide publicaction. These principles include: value-multiplicity(public action must be open to different values, culturesand perspectives); the balancing of interests within anotion of collective good which transcends anyamalgamation of particular sets of interests; publicchoice expressing multiple criteria (not just customersatisfaction, for example, or any one set of criteria)which incorporate considerations of appropriateness andrelevance, availability and accessibility, acceptance interms of quality, effectiveness and efficiency.Basically, these sets of organising principles provide acontext where management in the public domain is ‘...structured to support those political processes ...[which rest upon public discourse leading to collective

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choice based on public consent] ..., informing discourse,realising content and enabling collective choice.’(p.110).

The second aspect of the rethinking of the publicdomain forming the development of the learning society isthe renewal of democracy. Ranson and Stewart draw ourattention to the following: an infrastructure ofcommunity forums (for the expression of public discourseand critical reflection on public provision); thereconstitution of regional and local government as the‘... community governing itself.’ (p.130) which canrepair the damage done to local decision-making in recentyears; local government to become the principal focus ofcommunity interest and activity; a central governmentwhich is enabling and supportive of community action; newmechanisms of public accountability where publicinstitutions are opened up to more frequent and deeperprocesses of electoral accountability; an emphasis onfreedom of information - which is essential for thedevelopment of a learning society.

Thirdly, a learning society ‘... requires publiclearning as the necessary condition for its growth anddevelopment.’ (p.168). The strength of the public arenafor ‘public learning’ (learning which informs publicchoice, action, consent and critical reflection andappraisal) is crucial. In this respect, the learningsociety requires what Ranson and Stewart call ‘double-loop’ learning which supports societal development. Thisis learning for ‘responsive change’ where mechanisms forthe citizenry to publicly review, critique and amendpublic actions are developed. Such learning is about:

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problems and issues which render present policiesineffective;

aspirations which cannot be met by present policies;

emerging problems and issues which are not being adequatelymet within present society;

changing knowledge which can lead to the possibility ofmore effective action by government;

the capacity of organisations inside and outside the publicdomain to meet the problems and issues faced and to realisethe aspirations held.

Organisations in the public domain can become dominatedby the necessities of prevailing actions, engenderingwhat Ranson and Stewart call ‘single-loop’ learning, asin the case of the NETTs. This reinforces presentactivities, which may have disastrous consequences ifthey are misguided, and restricts ‘learning’ to the‘boundaries of those activities’ (p.186). Learning in thepublic domain, if a learning society is to flourish,cannot be set by the boundaries established throughexisting public choices. Furthermore, learning must beused to inform public choice, to judge public choice andactions and to empower public culture through developingpolicies for encouraging and enabling active citizenship.

The above account of the processes of enabling thelearning society leaves much out. As is clear, the mainemphasis is on public learning in the public domain andhow public management can contribute to such learning.However, Ranson’s learning society is about activelearning throughout the social formation, and whilst thereis material on learning in families and other socialinstitutions in Management for the Public Domain this is anunder-developed aspect of the analysis. What Management inthe Public Domain does show is that:

‘The organising principles of the publicdomain provide the purposes, conditionsand tasks for public management. Thepurposes present the criteria by whichthe practice of public management in

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enabling the democratic process for thelearning society can be judged.’(p.272).

Thus, it provides criteria for judging the movementstowards (or away from) the learning society in terms ofpublic learning. Other criteria will be required forjudging learning in the ‘private’ realm - but that isanother story.

ConclusionThis paper has argued that the currently dominant view ofthe learning society - as learning for work - degeneratesinto capitalist form. By default, a ‘learning society’ isemerging which is driven by a need to raise the qualityof human labour power in relation to our economiccompetitors. This errant ‘learning society’ is powered bythe NETTs which are creating a certified society which ismiles away from the rich and expansive view of thelearning society as expounded by Stewart Ranson and JohnStewart.

However, Ranson and Stewart’s perspective on thelearning society ultimately rests upon changing thesocial trajectory along which we are currentlytravelling. The approach to social becoming which ispresented here takes this project to be both possible anddesirable. The task becomes one of political persuasion,mobilisation and action. This will clearly be a long-termactivity. Furthermore, Ranson’s bottom-up perspective onthe learning society entails that citizens come toactively and creatively shape the concrete institutionalforms of this society of the future for themselves. Thisimplies a long-term project involving: the revaluation ofexisting educational values; re-orienting institutions sothat democracy, public learning and participation aremaximised; working for mechanisms which ensure openness

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in public institutions and debate whilst also takingaccount of difference and conflicting interests; the de-centralisation of power to localities; and, creatingorganisational instruments designed to assess publicinstitutions in terms of the underlying presuppositions,principles and conditions underpinning the learningsociety as set out in Ranson’s Towards the Learning Society.Most of all, there will need to be a huge cultural shiftwhere institutions and individuals come to placelearning, and what is learnt, at the centre of theiractivities. For higher education in particular, thisimplies the centrality of pedagogy as a discipline inwhich all the other subject disciplines are necessarilyinvolved - the pivotal position to which sociology onceaspired, or English Literature according to Leavis, andclassically philosophy as ‘Queen of the Sciences’ (seeAinley, Batty and Ranson, 1994). All this will take time.But Ranson has provided the sketch and some guidingprinciples, and if we are serious about wanting alearning society then we (individually and collectively)will have to change our current social trajectory andwork towards the creation of the socio-economic andpolitical infrastructure which will add colour andtexture to the outline form.

The emergence of any learning city within the currentsocial context must face the debilitating NETTs mechanismand avoid becoming a capitalist social form where thelabour power requirements of capital are the dominantaspect. It is difficult to see how any learning city as amicrocosm of Ranson’s learning society could emerge inthe current unpromising climate. However, given thelocalisation of power and democratic forms andinstitutions on Ranson’s account of the learning society,the development of learning cities would go hand in handwith the development of the learning society. There arenot two processes involved here. The devolution of powerand control to localities simultaneously enables learning

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cities and becomes a constituent aspect of the learningsociety.

For Ranson and Stewart, one of the issues thatrequires further development is how their learningsociety relates to capital and also to the transcendenceof capitalism and finally to socialism. More fashionably,another area of undertheorisation is how the learningsociety relates to notions of postmodernity,postmodernism, post-Fordism, the information society andthe like (though Ainley, 1993, has addressed some ofthese issues). These are questions that nearly allwriters and theorists of the learning society have so farpaid little attention to.

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