The second period dates from the early part of the 20th century, and spans the time of the rise of monopoly. capitalist enterprise. Two relatively distinct but related perspectives emerged at this time, both responding to the social problems arising out of the intensified exploitation of the new surplus population of unskilled labourers. The first one, which developed in the 1899 to 1907 period, included a limited critique of the harsh employment practices of frontier camps and a limited advocacy of the material interests of the predominantly anglo-Canadian workers. However, it identified the lack of means of self-improvement during non-working hours in the camps as the main cause of the "moral diseases" of workers, such as crime, slackened productivity and pauperism, and prescribed literacy education to prevent them. The second perspective, which arose after 1907, particularly focused on the situation of unskilled immigrant workers, often illiterate in the English language, who largely replaced anglo-Canadians as the main pool of unskilled labour. Frequently these workers reacted against the harsh social and economic conditions which greeted them in Canada by supporting radical political movements. Adult educators and others characterized this response (which was of deep concern to political and economic elites) as the consequence of their failure to become assimilated to dominant Canadian values and Institutions, to become "Canadianized", as a result of cultural isolation imposed by illiteracy and lack of education. They promoted literacy and language classes to make this assimilation possible.

The third period of responses to illiteracy commenced in late 1950's, when illiteracy was signed out as a prime causal factor in the persistent unemployment and poverty which followed in the wake of a long period of rapid but extremely uneven growth in the Canadian economy after World War II. The federal government responded by funding academic upgrading and job training, first under the Technical and Vocational Training Act of 1960, and then under the Adult Occupational Training Act of 1967--the latter forming the basis of the Canada Manpower Training Program. Other Initiatives influenced by this perspective, i.e. the liberal perspective on illiteracy, have included the numerous literacy and A8E programs implemented after 1960 by a variety of governmental and non-governmental organizations. The liberal perspective remains dominant to the present day.

Contradictory Objectives

When we inquire as to the nature and timing of the historical periods which have given rise to new perspectives on illiteracy, it is apparent that they have not been random or accidental; rather, they have been successive phases in the 'normal', i.e. uneven and contradictory, development of the capitalist system in Canada. They have been initiated by major transitions in the accumulation process, including its consolidation vis a vis another mode of production, its deepening or its widening.

Paradoxically, it has been during these periods of rapid expansion and development that the capitalist system has undermined one of the very foundations of its existence--the capacity of its cultural and social institutions to reproduce a willing and obedient class of wage labourers. That is, accompanying the intensified production of wealth during these periods, there has also been an intensified production of unemployment and poverty. Depending upon factors like the state of cooperation and leadership within the working class, its ideological mobilization, its resources for combat, etc., the reaction of the most oppressed stratum of the working class (which, not coincidently, suffers most from illiteracy) has taken on increasingly system threatening forms. The nature of the reaction has tended to move from individual forms like alcoholism, family breakdown, etc., toward collective. forms, including unorganized ones like criminality, absenteeism from work and insubordination in the workplace, to more organized ones like strikes and support for radical political movements.