Some remarks by Tim Luke. on liberal education, universities and employment in the postmodern market governed by neo-liberalism. They raise questions about the relevance of philosophy today as education is increasingly reshaped from a public to a private good used for upward economic mobility. This kind of education is becoming increasingly expensive and financed through long-term debt in the form of student loans.

In Miscast Canons Luke says that:

"The culture wars, and their attendant attacks on what happens in the nation's schools, colleges and universities, cannot be dismissed as insignificant rhetorical exercises. On one level, the publics served by educational institutions, rightly or wrongly, now question higher education's accountability and responsiveness to their needs."

"The canonical teachings of classic liberal arts education, then, are perhaps sorely miscast in a world of flexible specialization. Now kanban ("just in time") management or kaizen ("continuous improvement") engineering direct individuals away from the classic Aristotlean ideals of training every citizen for lives of ethics and politics through leisurely learning in order to hone their skills of subjection to the clock or to devote their talents to a quest for essentially mechanical training. The wisdom of UPS, or learning how "to move at the speed of business," and the teachings of Lexus, or accepting "the relentless pursuit of perfection," displace Plato or Aristotle as the privileged codes used for imaging and fulfilling social individuality. The vast bureaucratic hierarchies of the corporate world, where one might have once usefully deployed insights from Socrates, Aquinas, and Kant or Sophocles, Chaucer or Lessing in contemplation of that organization's collective welfare, are eroding away in the global flows of post-Fordist exchange. For many, Aristotle's plea to impart the wisdom of statesmen at praxis to citizens of any polis falls on very deaf ears as job markets, parents, and taxpayers demand more and more of the techne needed by servile mechanics in subjection to the globalized marketplace."