ECONOMIC AND SOCIO-CULTURAL ROLE OF EDUCATION WITHIN THE THEORY OF HUMAN CAPITAL
In the second half of the twentieth century some American scientists introduced the concept of "human capital" and began to use it as an economic category. Their ideas formed a theory, the core of which was the thesis that human capital increases due to a number of reasons, the main of which is the educational level of people. The consequence of the human capital growth is an increase in labor productivity, the development of the national economy, which leads to the economic well-being of the workers themselves, as well as to a higher demand for individuals in the labor market. Alongside with the arguments in support of this theory the article represents its critics’ reasoning. It is shown that thanks to discussions, the theory develops and gains additional flexibility, and the very concept of “human capital” expands and includes diverse individual abilities that allow a person to solve not only economic problems, but also to set broad sociocultural goals. Due to this the concept of human capital, especially in the studies of Russian scientists, is becoming more and more voluminous and complex, at the same time it is getting less and less verifiable, and the theory is gradually moving from a purely economic field to the field of interdisciplinary research. But this complication of the problems, in our opinion, gave it a competitive advantage among many other concepts and allowed it to advance to the center of scientific discussions.