Some in the literacy community would want to refuse engagement in this dominant policy discussion, with its subordination of society to economic purposes. But what is the alternative? In another vision, it should be an attainable economic and social goal to have full employment and minimum standards of social equity. Economic goals are then seen as means to enhance Canadians' democratic control over the conditions of their own lives. This vision, which points to the embedding of social and educational rights in the framework of political and economic agreements, also certainly has consequences for literacy policy: it would not be viable to have hundreds of thousands of people whose literacy skills were adequate (in employers' view or in their own) only because they were unattached or only marginally attached to the labour market, and to community and political organization. In such a vision, arguments for literacy do not depend on government and business having problems with people's limited skill. Rather an equitable distribution of literacy skills and opportunities to use literacy are sought as fundamental rights. This argument, though it has had limited force in Canadian political discussion in recent years, is one that that the literacy movement can develop and assert.

In this broad policy discussion, the literacy community may make affiliations with other movements for social equity. Even beyond that possibility, there are lessons in literacy work — about why and when and how adults learn — that are important for the whole policy discussion. The wisdom of literacy work is that people's learning and use of language and literacy must be centred in their communities and their various purposes. Learning begins close to people's lives in all their complexity, and often in conjunction with the organizations that people have learned to trust. Therefore learning cannot be reduced to what would be contained within any centralizing edicts. (With regard to economic goals, one might say that the economy can only be strengthened by releasing processes of learning that are beyond management control). In the 1990s it will be a challenge for the literacy community to assert this wisdom in a very broad and complex policy discussion, and for the economic and governmental institutions that promote and regulate literacy work to learn to assimilate its lessons.