As we have seen, the liberal perspective attributes poverty to an "imperfection" in the socio-economic system--the maldistribution of "human capital" in the form of basic, education, job skills and life skills. According to liberal welfare state doctrine, it is the responsibility of government to compensate for such imperfections in the system. In this sense, liberalism threads its way between the political left and the political right. It accepts the need for specific reforms, but it attributes the problems to which the reforms are addressed to mere malfunctions in the socio-economic system which can be corrected through 'technical adjustments', (i.e. do not call for fundamental and thorough-going change). Thus, in spite of its reformist tendencies, liberalism basically aims to preserve the existing social and economic institutions of capitalist society.

In line with these assumptions, liberals see literacy and basic education for impoverished adults as a technical matter of the transfer of cognitive skills to those who are deficient in them. It is thought that this, in conjunction with occupational training and life skills training, will enhance the economic productivity of the poor and lead to a reduction in poverty and unemployment.

In the wake of evidence that such remediation policies have not been successful, adherents of conservative and critical viewpoints have challenged the liberal perspective. Conservatives reject the view that poverty is caused by imperfections in the economy. They argue that if left alone by government, a capitalist economy will provide sufficient opportunities for individual advancement. The inequalities of power and wealth that result are the 'natural' outcomes of variations in competence and ambition. According to this view, poverty is caused by inherent problems and deficiencies of the poor, and not by environmental and institutional factors (e.g. maldistribution of basic education). For this reason, conservatives believe that government policies which attempt to alter the functioning of the economy to make if 'fairer' or create 'equal opportunity' (e.g. literacy and basic education) cannot reduce poverty. They suggest that in fact it was the rapid development of just such 'unproductive' and 'misguided' welfare state programs which restrained normal and healthy economic growth and to a large degree caused the inflation and stagnation of the 1970's and 1980's. In their view, these programs must be scaled down or eliminated in order to 'unshackle' the free market economy.

As we have seen, the critical perspective rejects both the reformist defense of capitalist institutions presented by the liberal perspective, and the all-out conservative celebration of them. Instead, it views the capitalist economy as inherently exploitative and as the main source of poverty. Illiteracy is seen as only a secondary factor, reinforcing, rather than causing, poverty. Adherents of the critical perspective favour collective action by the victims of class exploitation to fundamentally alter the socio-economic system. Programs of literacy and basic education are seen as a potential means of support for such a transformative movement.