Besides other theoretical perspectives, the understanding of present adult education and learning policy discourse also demands contributions from social enquiry originated in the broader field of permanent education. The works of Paulo Freire and Ettore Gelpi, two of the most important authors who developed a critical perspective of permanent education may provide valuable resources for understanding what adult education has to offer in educating our way out of the current crisis. Both authors developed political pedagogies and dialectical approaches, which are central to critical studies. Inspired by the works of Freire and of Gelpi, this paper challenges the perspectives which argue that welfare state intervention has been the main source of the education crisis, that the withdrawal of the state can be a way of reviving individual learning, that the training of competent and useful human resources represents a strategy for crisis management and the promotion of economic competitiveness. On the contrary, it concludes that adult education in the light of a critical concept of permanent education is a key to the understanding of the crisis, and to 'educating' the crisis -- a metaphor that both in a Freirian and Gelpian perspective stresses the importance of culture, work and social struggles for the transformation of the social world.