Political and economic upheavals in the 1990s have left their mark on adult education. A major source of change is globalization of the capitalist economy and its restructuring, which make extraordinary demands on education, particularly adult education. Lifelong learning has become an ideological distraction shifting the burden of increasing adaptability to the worker and a ray of hope for a more democratic, engaged citizenry. A Marxist-feminist framework explains complex social relations that underpin the lifelong learning debate. Marxist feminism views feminism as a conscious intervention in the hierarchically organized regime of gender power. Instead of achieving prosperity for individual workers, reorganization of adult education is concurrent with emergence of a newly segmented working class. Talking about lifelong learning for a unified workforce is actually talking about a highly stratified group. By differentiating skills along lines of race and gender, workers with a wealth of skills, knowledge, and experience are devalued; the commodity value of white male labor continues to rise. An ever cheaper, ever more adaptable workforce is the only way to ensure continued growth of profit in a global capitalist system. As a citizen-centered project of social change, lifelong learning must invigorate its ties with social movements, without which it fails to achieve its full potential. (Contains 13 references.) (YLB)