Assuming that ordinary people have lacked the background, ability, and will to make prudent lifestyle decisions, Sargent and other human services professionals pursued visions of the rational, regulated life. That so many professions have entertained the same visions is not a mere coincidence. A human capital model, with its assumptions and implicit rules, unites these professions and their delivery systems. After offering a critique of this model, a human development perspective is presented, its assumptions identified, and its life-enabling education sketched. All human services professions face the need for transformations; the question is, will they make them?