The Tragedy of the Education Commons by Guy Standing
This is a hugely important book for all those who care about our education system- as I have done for the past 40 years. It will enlighten you to the marketisation and commodification of education at all levels- and it will enlighten you-and anger you about the ways it has been enclosed by the market just as the ancient commons were enclosed by royalty and the wealthy elite over time. Commoning in general has always been a struggle against waives of enclosure argues Guy in this SOAS lecture he gave earlier this year -at the launch of the book.
It’s about a truth that has not been widely shared -a belief that the commons and commoning are at the heart of all progressive transformations. The premise of his book is that education is inherently a commons, a public good, belonging to everybody. And education as a commons prioritises access to shared knowledge and respect for truth and aims to encourage independent critical thinking and active participation in the community and wider society.
It rigorously addresses these question-Does the education system make better people? Why are so many – teachers and students alike – stressed and dissatisfied? Do we need to revive real education? Ideally, education is about the pursuit of truth, beauty and morality. But in the last few decades, a perilous fixation with human capital – skills, knowledge and aptitudes required for the labour market – has trampled over curricula, schools and universities.
Rather than learning how to think critically about the world, from cradle to grave students are trained to be more effective workers, to make more money, and to serve a hegemonic ideology. Teachers and researchers are pressed to serve those goals.
In this concluding book in his series on the commons, Guy Standing explores how education – intrinsically a common public good – has been enclosed, privatised, financialised and corrupted, turned into an instrument of societal control, not human emancipation, weakening democracy, not strengthening it. Human Capital charts how the education industry largely serves commercial interests, not its teachers and students, and considers how to revive its lost values, to save society for the common good.
Discussants following the lecture • John McDonnell, MP • Danny Dorling, Professor, University of Oxford • Kate Pickett, Professor, University of York Co-chairs • Christopher Cramer, Professor, Department of Development Studies, SOAS University of London • Patrick Allen, Head of the Progressive Economy Forum
You tube SOAS Lecture 2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srWboH2SM0o
