When I was reading Mullaly’s text on the Marxist paradigm, it sounded really sweet and exciting for a while as many of their beliefs are very similar to social work ideals and practices. But it has turned to be a real lemon when I stepped on to their view on welfare state on which they expressed a deep disagreement.
Marxists view that social issues like poverty will never be resolved in a capitalist society marginalizing which the capitalists justify their own centrality and superiority. They are doing politics on poverty through different means and strategies so as to continue their supremacy over the mass and social welfare is one of their propaganda. I have seen some cases myself in Winnipeg and mostly in my home country Nepal where there are many non-government organizations(NGOs) making profit through government contracts in delivering services to poor people (Mullaly, 2007) which are not being effective enough to improve their situation. Poor people are always made victims in every social aspect, forced to engage in lower income but dirty and risky jobs.
Marxist approach to social welfare sounds very supportive to social work practice as long as it applauds for the participation of poor/lay people in determining policy of every level. For them, social services should be distributed according to need, should be universal, comprehensive, adequate and free (Mullaly p.149). But to see such practice under capitalism is just to dream for warmth in a starry night. That is why they want to abolish the system itself in order to have an effective social policy to get the desired result. However, it’s not easy to bring a revolutionary change in this time and the harder part is to sustain it. So, many modern Marxists and neo-Marxists are getting more evolutionary in their approach towards change analyzing welfare state and social work as an instrument for emancipation of oppressed groups (Mullaly, p.154).
As long as they want change from the status quo and want the solution of the problem, Marxist are far more better than the neo-conservatives. But further ahead I do not agree with them as they denounce the welfare program for being the supportive of the capitalist system itself. Is it good to stop the support program from the government to the poor people in the name of their ideology? They might me right that the profitable group is other than the deserving poor people but at least they get something which is better than nothing. Aren’t they similar to the capitalist in their own terminology doing politics on poverty? Are the left political institutions are totally not affected by the social welfare? And David Brady (2003) says no, because those institutions partially combine with and partially channel through welfare state to reduce poverty.
So, it can be said that politics on poverty is going on in one way or the other. And it is harder to deviate from it because it has been the central social problem for always. One reason why it has been so is because every ideology or political party makes judgements on their own way. To borrow the phrase from Harris Ostwald (2009), we need a deeper look at poverty in order to have holistic, transformational and effective progress in this issue. Proper combination and reciprocity among continuous government funding, updated welfare policy and skilful social work practice is the most to reach in the goal. No more politics but just the practice of proper policy. Soon we will be free from the virus of poverty. Hurray!!!!!!!!
Subas D.
References:
Brady, D. (2003). The politics of poverty: Left political institutions, the welfare state and poverty. Social Forces, 82 (2), 557-588.
Connie, H. D. (2008). A deeper look at poverty. Transformation,26 (2), 130-145.
Mullaly, B. (2007). The new structural social work (3rd ed.). Toronto: Oxford University Press.
Subas, nice post! I agree with your third paragraph. The Marxist paradigm seems like a dream, but trying to incorporate any of those principles into our current governing legislation is an impossible task. I suppose that's why Mullaly explains that Marxists have differing beliefs with how to come about social change than their neighbouring Social Democrats, although I feel as though both paradigms will have low success rates in changing major social policies.
ReplyDeleteVery nice post! I definitely agree with what you said on poverty being one of the central social problems for more or less always.It is very evident that all ideologies in each their own way judge everything to an extent and with poverty it is no different, in fact I think it could be one of the worst. Your last paragraph really summed up the most truest of facts. Poverty must be looked at more in depth.
ReplyDeleteBelinda
I like your point of view on this Subas. Although Marxism would seem like the perfect ideology for people in poverty due to the fact that everyone contributes what they can but live in equality. You had a really good way of analyzing how this would be if it was actually put in place and the effects it would have. The points you made were very true, in the sense that this is more of a utopia than an actual possibility, and if they started by abolishing the welfare system like you said it would leave these people with nothing. Good points.
ReplyDeleteLeah
Your point was very well explained, and I absolutely agree with the fact that poverty is a huge societal issue. Social welfare systems definitely should be universal and distributed according to need, I believe a lot of problems would get resolved that way!
ReplyDeleteAlyssa
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ReplyDeleteI agree that in a conservative and capitalist society poverty will never diminish. It's what drives people to succeed (according to the conservatives). Poverty has not been given the right attention it deserves, and the people are the ones who are left unheard, isolated and disadvantaged.
ReplyDelete-Medina