In view of the usefulness of the liberal perspective, there was little motivation to seriously question it, and it served as orthodoxy throughout the 1960's and early 1970's. The depth of the involvement of the Canadian government in the remediation approach is indicated in the fact that in an 8 month period in 1974, the federal government spent nearly 65 million dollars on the academic upgrading and life-skills training components of the Canada Manpower program, or just over 28% of the total expenditures for the whole program. 55 One critic of the program, Anthony Berezowecki, referred in 1974 to the "rapid emergence of adult basic education as 'big business' all across Canada." ..56

The Liberal Perspective in Question

In the latter half of the 1970's the corrosive effects of sustained high inflation combined with economic stagnation caused earlier concerns about poverty amidst affluence" to give way to fears that the declining competitiveness of the North American economies within a deeply troubled capitalist world economy might in fact spell57 the end of affluence itself. In this atmosphere of economic crisis, serious questions began to be raised about the value and effectiveness of existing liberal policies, including the 'educational solution' for unemployment and poverty. The controversy became particularly intense in the United States, where evaluations of the "war on poverty," including literacy and upgrading programs, yielded disappointing results. In his 1977 review of evaluation studies of the existing programs, Hon M. Levin, a political economist of education, states:

the overall thrust of such programs was predicated on the view that the poor are poor because of their low productivities resulting from personal incompetencies. By providing more education and training it was hoped to raise competencies, productivities, and earnings of the impoverished. A wide variety of programs were either initiated or expanded during the poverty decade, and the evaluations and relevant research suggest that their effect on the reduction of poverty was minimal 58.