Wall Street Meets the Day Nursery: A New Rationale for Early Education and Care in the United States in the Twenty-First Century

For the past decade or so, the “social investment” paradigm has been sweeping policy debates across Western Europe and the United States, especially in the domain of Early Childhood Education and Care, where the ideas of economist James Heckman have been widely influential. This shift has led to a greater support for policies in this realm, but at what cost? This essay looks at earlier rationalizations for such policies in the United States and then examines the origins and spread of social investment thinking, concluding with an assessment of its consequences—practical, political, and philosophical.