Originally published in 1976, Bowles and Gintis (economics, U. of Massachusetts) examine how the social organization of education and work have become so intertwined. Their perspective is critical of capitalism, but opened to a mix of market competition, government policies and public education as part of a transitional program to cultivate the working-class consciousness necessary to build a socialist society. In this spirit, they advance and defend the position that (capitalist) schooling socializes people to be at home "in the hierarchical structure of the modern corporation or public office." They argue that attainment in education and genetic dispositions for intelligence play less of a role in determining economic inequality than class origins, connections and habitus. Finally, they look to the origins and development of modern public education and see not "the gradual perfection of a democratic and pedagogic ideal but [...] a series of class and other conflicts arising through the transformation of the social organization of work and its rewards." They offer a vision in the end of a socialist revolution leveraged by radical education reforms that socializes people for a worker-owned, democratically run, egalitarian polity. Annotation Aⓒ2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)