The principal failure of attempts to reduce illiteracy in the United States lies in the conceptualization of the problem to which literacy is the solution and in an underfinanced practice that parallels dominant educational institutions, emphasizing the service of individuals. Adult education plays a critical role in liberatory action. Although the intervention of adult educators often preempts social goals by fostering individual advancement, systematic reflection--the core of adult education--is critical in shaping the direction of social change. One way to define literacy is to identify the problems for which it is the solution. The U.S. Literacy Initiative proposes literacy as a remedy for the exclusion of a large segment of the population from effective citizenship and productive jobs. The problem is one of functionality and is premised on an inventory of those functions appropriate to maintenance of the social order. However, illiteracy is not the cause, but rather a by-product of social disfunctions that are, in origin, related to class, gender, and race. The most critical problem to which illiteracy is related is economic and political inequality. Developing the context for literacy is not an educational task, but the principal political task of any society committed to equal participation and democracy. Literacy must be understood in a broader context of class, gender, and race and linked with productive social movements that redress social inequities. (Contains 11 references.) (YLB)