<i>So we would all be better off in a society with no policies to increase the education of the poor/working class? Lower literacy rates are a boon to society?</i><p>It's not obvious that policies intended to do X actually help X very much.  In fact, there are so many counter-examples (I'm sure you can think of many yourself) that suggesting that the absence of government policy to do X would result in X not being done falls flat.  Most of the time, people overall are better off without a government policy concerning them.<p>Anyway, I think it's pretty obvious that most people are better off if more (other) people are literate.