Rafaela Creamer, Chapter 6, Question #5

This chapter was one of the most interesting to me because it explained the importance of education in the capitalist economy. Wheelan quoted another economist in this chapter, Becker, who said that our economy should really be called a "human capitalist economy," because human capital is the most important form of capital in creating wealth and growth. This wealth and growth is measured by the services from education or unique talent that a person can provide and produce toward the economy. There were two examples in this chapter that exemplified this principle. One was about the baseball players, that there was only one player that could hit the ball harder and more often than other people can, that is what made him unique and what made him rich. Another time where this is seen with education is the figurative example, about dropping off 100,000 high school dropouts compared to the 100,000 graduates’ from America's top universities in Chicago. It is obvious that the preferred group of students is the college graduates because in terms of human capital they are worth more due to the knowledge they have.