This paper uses the critical realist concept of human reflexivity to dev­elop a theoretical critique of the notion of 'skills' in current policy discourses, particularly in vocational education. We argue that current policy reifies skills as market commodities and alienates them from the minds, bodies, and hands of those who exercise them and the social contexts in which they are deployed. This is traced to historical ideas of a liberal market society, resulting in an impoverished view of human beings and human agency. The skills discourse presumes people's reasons to value things they care about arise from possessive individualist preferences and external conditioning of atomistic social and material utility. In contrast, we suggest real people act on reasons they value to learn things and practice their skills or not, which resonates with the ontology of personhood, the intrinsic worth of human beings, and a rounded notion of human agency.