Postdigital Science and Education

https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-018-0001-z
REVIEWS

Review of Alexander J. Means (2018). Learning to Save the

Future: Rethinking Education and Work in an Era
of Digital Capitalism
New York: Routledge. 178 Pp. ISBN 9781138212626

Chris Arthur 1

# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018

Learning to Save the Future: Rethinking Education and Work in an Era of Digital
Capitalism is a timely, well-researched, accessible and insightful critique of today’s
prevailing commonsense assumption that education, markets and technology will solve
the serious political, social and economic crises we face. Amidst widespread debate
about the threat automation, data analytics, robotics, advanced computing power and
the Internet of Things pose (as well as their emancipatory potential), Learning to Save
the Future takes aim at the popular belief that a looming technological revolution
entails we shift to a ‘21st century education’ to forge agile, critical, creative, resilient,
digitally-savvy and entrepreneurial life-long learners whose soft-skills, knowledge and
ability to continually upgrade themselves will enable them to create or contribute to
sustainable opportunities for growing economic wealth.
Learning to Save the Future shows us why this thinking is not only wrong but
harmful, particularly to those already most disadvantaged. Robots are threatening mass
unemployment, the 1% is leaving everyone else behind, environmental destruction is
accelerating, precarity is the ‘new normal’ and a looming automation revolution
appears set to make these crises worse for the unprepared; yet, teaching more coding,
‘grit’, entrepreneurship, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)
or even STEAM (adding the Arts and Humanities to this human capital building
project) is not the solution. As Alexander J. Means illustrates, this ‘solutionist’ thinking
ignores the ways in which capitalism’s inherent structural dynamics contribute to these
crises and subverts the emancipatory potential of education and technology. In place of
an unimaginative educational solutionism which erases capitalism’s racialized, gen-
dered and classed structural inequities and cannot countenance even minor changes to
our political economy, he provides a vision of education as ‘mass intellectuality’ to

* Chris Arthur
chrisrossarthur@gmail.com

1
Toronto District School Board, Toronto, ON, Canada
 Postdigital Science and Education

better take advantage of our technological capabilities so we can create a post-capitalist

world which supports human emancipation, robust democratic institutions and the
ability and opportunity for all to flourish.
Written for both a scholarly and broader audience, Means draws from a range of
disciplines including Marxist political economy, Post-structuralism, Autonomism and
Accelerationism to illuminate the historical, ethical and discursive supports under-
pinning this ‘educational solutionist’ thinking and the threat it poses to our future.
Each chapter of this text is organized around a key ‘problem field’ associated with
education as a solution to technological disruption with the first setting the broad
parameters of the book’s analysis by providing an initial critique of educational
solutionism and its assumption that the creation of novel technologies, improved
market efficiency and appropriately trained humans will solve our pressing social,
economic and political crises.
The second chapter provides an historical overview of human capital theory,
which underpins educational solutionism, before moving to illustrate its con-
ceptual, ethical and political failings. The next four chapters expand upon this
analysis, beginning with the third chapter which overviews the growing
precarity afflicting millennial youth while juxtaposing three theoretical frames
for viewing this precarity: the theory of skill-biased technological change
(SBTC) which assumes that Ba rising supply of skilled labour generates em-
ployment as it keeps pace with new technological requirements^ (Means 2018:
44); liberal Keynesianism; and Marxist political economy. While agreeing with
Keynesians that SBTC - an extension of human capital theory - occludes
capitalism’s disequilibrium tendencies and cannot solve the inequality capitalism
generates, Means cogently illustrates that their demand-side solutions are insuf-
ficient, borrowing from Marxist theorists such as David Harvey to show that
disequilibrium, crises and precarity are core features of capitalism’s inherent
structural dynamics.
The fourth chapter takes aim at the popular rhetoric surrounding ‘creativity’ in
education, analyzing the creative economy’s historical evolution as a solution to late
capitalism’s crises and mobilizing Autonomist insights on the ‘commons’ and
‘biopolitical production’ to draw out the antagonism between capitalist control and
creativity in education. The fifth chapter on ‘algorithmic education’ analyzes historical
antecedents and recent digital learning technology initiatives which promise to enhance
human capital inculcation through data analytic software that personalizes student
learning. As with the other chapters, the philosophical, sociological and economic
analysis uncovers the ethics and worldview underpinning these digital learning initia-
tives to illustrate their relation to broader social changes and impact on human
subjectivity, education and democracy.
The sixth chapter brings together many of the findings of the previous
chapters to examine the present relationship between education and automation.
After providing a succinct overview of past and present predictions about
technological unemployment from Marx, Keynes and Schumpeter to automation
researchers such as Frey and Osborne (2013), Ford (2015) and Cowen (2013),
the chapter analyzes the merits of three responses to technological unemploy-
ment: human capital maximization; Keynesian proposals such as work sharing
and a guaranteed income; and radical post-work alternatives. The seventh,
Postdigital Science and Education

and final chapter, draws from a range of contemporary sources to overview

future possibilities if we keep on our present path. Stagnation, increased
precarity and social disintegration are projected to be real possibilities leading
Means to offer a vision of education as ‘mass intellectuality’, a project which
aims to provide citizens with the ability to not only critique present structural
injustices but to create and flourish within a post-capitalist future.
Learning to Save the Future: Rethinking Education and Work in an Era of Digital
Capitalism is an exemplary text that should be widely read. A novel offering for the
field of education, which has few critical analyses of the relationship between educa-
tion, automation and capitalism from a post-work perspective, Learning to Save the
Future is a key text for gaining a more critical understanding of the role education and
advanced technology play in the many important crises we face today. For graduate
students or beginning researchers in the field of critical theory, Means illustrates how to
critically analyze dominant discourses and practices in an accessible manner while still
providing a wide-ranging and trenchant critique that draws upon recent advanced
research. Throughout his examination of each problem field, Means provides the reader
with the necessary context to understand what is at stake by laying out the history of the
dominant thinking in the field. He then brings in contrasting perspectives, as he moves
from an immanent critique to a more radical critique informed by a range of critical
disciplines to better illuminate key problems or shortcomings with educational
solutionism and its alternatives. Importantly, he does so in a way that does not sacrifice
clarity or his analysis for the sake of theoretical ornamentation. As such, Learning to
Save the Future provides an excellent example of how to use critical and
complex theoretical frameworks to illuminate problematic aspects of seemingly uncon-
troversial and benign phenomena.
Further, the book is an important read for citizens concerned about democracy
and the future of our world. Throughout the book, Means draws out the
sometimes violent implications of educational solutionism, particularly how its
moralization and individualization of racialized, gendered and classed structural
inequities across a number of problem fields supports blaming marginalized
groups for systemic inequities. This reminder of the violence of supposedly
non-ideological or ‘technocratic’ policy solutions is particularly salient given
right-wing populism’s resurgence as a seemingly credible alternative to neoliberal
solutionism. Means’ critical historicizing of education and technology is also
important, reminding us that neither education or technology are neutral but have
been shaped to serve particular ends and so can be reshaped to support other,
more equitable outcomes. This denaturalization of the prevailing dogma on
education, technology and the economy is so important for political agency as
Means notes. Finally, his vision of education as mass intellectuality prods us to
rethink and revalue the purpose and character of education so we can move
beyond initiatives and debates dominated by the unimaginative and stale
solutionism that dominates the field of education today.
Throughout Learning to Save the Future: Rethinking Education and Work in
an Era of Digital Capitalism, Means points to openings and opportunities that
exist today to garner support for valuing education and technology differently. To
recover the emancipatory potential of both education and technology and restore
futurity to a future that appears increasingly precarious, crisis-ridden and
 Postdigital Science and Education

unsustainable, we must take advantage of these openings. Educational

solutionism is not the answer, and its veneer of optimism is wearing thin. We
need positive change now. The greatest value of this book is that it provides a
means to create this change.

References

Cowen, T. (2013). Average is over: Powering America beyond the age of the great stagnation. New York:
Dutton Adult.
Ford, M. (2015). Rise of the robots: Technology and the threat of a jobless future. New York: Basic Books.
Frey, C. B., & Osborne, M. A. (2013). The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to
computerisation? Working Paper. Oxford: Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford. https://www.
oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf. Accessed July 20, 2018.
Means, A. J. (2018). Learning to save the future: Rethinking education and work in an era of digital
capitalism. New York: Routledge.