This article analyzes the changes the main multilateral agencies made, in the turn of the century, to the public policy approaches in countries where there was 'dependent capitalism,' changes materialized in the 'millennium development policies' (MDP). It is noticeable that new ideological bases, underpinned by Robert Putnam's 'social capital theory,' were introduced in these policies. In the realms of education, it is thought this adjustment process will trigger a new stage of renewal of the human capital ideology, one that increases the attributions of the school and limits the political dimension that inserts pedagogic action. The thesis is that the MDPs are intellectually- and morally-driven function hegemony mechanisms, with concrete actions and goal definitions focused on the tiers of workers who are 'excluded' from the productive process but, none-theless, are still able to produce, aiming to establishing a more intensive process of educating for conformism. The Gramsci categories are used as a base for the analyses.
human capital; social capital; ideology; conformism; public policies