Most critical work on global education policy (GEP) continues to elaborate a Marxist-inspired critique reminiscent of the 1960-1980s, fixated on coercive capitalist demands on education. Within comparative and international education, these critiques trace roots to Wallerstein's World-Systems Theory (WST), as most explicitly embraced and articulated in North American comparative education. However, beginning in the late 1980s, Wallerstein began to recognise the epistemic and ontological limits of Marxism, vigorously advocating 'opening' Western social science to non-Western perspectives as means of unthinking 'European Universalism'. Instead of tracking Wallerstein's evolution and evolving the field, most of the self-styled 'critical' work in comparative education remained unreflective about its allegiance to Western social science paradigms, in particular the Marxist dismissal of religion, culture, and episteme as simply epiphenomena of capitalism. The consequences are profound: contemporary GEP work reinforces a parochial nineteenth-century European worldview, and restricts the field's potential contribution to the elaboration of 'Universal Universalism'.