One-Dimensional Thought/Human Capital

[Stephen Smith <SMITHS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse observes how affixing certain adjectives to
nouns (e.g, "industrial park," "representative democracy") serves ideological
functions and promotes one-dimensional thought by blurring distinctions and
flattening contradictions. Is anyone on the list familiar with work--including,
but not necessarily limited to, technical linguistic analyses--that develops,
pursues, and/or critiques Marcuse's observations.

>From my perspective, a particularly egregious example of how language serves
ideological functions by  blurring crucial distinctions is the term "human
capital," about which in the past forty years a lot of economists have written.
>From a Marxist perspective, the term human capital is wrong and outrageous for
many reasons.  However, I'm looking for critiques of these studies of "human
capital"--especially those relating it to economic growth--  from other
perspectives, primarily those which operate within the paradigm of mainstream
economics as it is practiced/taught in most US universities.

If anybody on the list knows of such critiques of human capital research and/or
follow-ups to Marcuse's observations about one-dimensional thought, I would be
grateful if you'd let me know. (It might be easier to email me directly rather
than clog up the list with topics in which only a few folks might be
interested).

Many thanks.

---Steve Smith
    smiths@xxxxxxxxxxxx