The present article is based on a critical semiotic investigation of the Swedish Long-Term Survey on economic development. It aims to examine how recent Swedish policy trends bring specific economic, political and social processes together to form a system of meaning for both motivation and regulation over individuals' educational choices. What is specifically investigated is how the survey directs attention to shaping actors' wants and decisions in relation to economically productive educational choices through information about education and employment and how education reorganization can redirect economic liabilities from the public to the individual. The particular consequences for educational choices are discussed from the concepts of righteousness, reasonableness and necessity as semantic distinctions that are used to illustrate causal claims on a policy level. The article indicates that these policies rest on apparently categorical ontological and epistemological assumptions on how to direct choices. This appears to be a complexity reduction with the attempt to imply the pre-eminence of economic meaning and motivation for people's decisions in education and social participation.