The changing nature of western capitalism and its impact on social work in Europe

Abstract

The article is about the ambiguous nature of compromises between nation-state, capitalism and social work. The author analyses the impact on social work of capitalism’s latest turn towards globalisation, towards privatisation and the marketisation of human services. The political changes potentially open up new possibilities for social work to move out of the individualism – communalism axis which it had always experienced as far too constraining. The new emphasis on identity meets social work largely unprepared. Where before national identity had been assumed to have been simply given, so the re-discovered differences were frequently treated as simply given. Concern over identity in social work was relegated to specialised areas, such as work with immigrants and refugees, and the attempt at bringing anti-racism on the agenda run into a barrage of opposition rallying under the banner of equality. But the project of the articulation of diversity, whenever it becomes detached from an historical and political context, is bound to lead to new contradictions.