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Overview
'I would encourage undergraduates students to read it, for it does summarise well a classical Marxist analysis of social policy and welfare' - Social Policy
The anti-capitalist movement is increasingly challenging the global hegemony of neo-liberalism. The arguments against the neo-liberal agenda are clearly articulated in Rethinking Welfare. The authors highlight the growing inequalities and decimation of state welfare, and use Marxist approaches to contemporary social policy to provide a defence of the welfare state.
Divided into three main sections, the first part of this volume looks at the growth of inequality, and social and environmental degradation.
Part Two centres on the authors' argument for the relevance of core Marxists concepts in aiding our understanding of social policy. This section includes Marxist approaches to a range of welfare issues, and their implications for studying welfare regimes and practices.
Issues covered include:
· Class and class struggle
· Opression
· Alienation and the family
The last part of the book explores the question of globalization and the consequences of international neo-liberalism on indebted countries as well as the neo-liberal agenda of the Conservative and New Labour governments in Britain. The authors conclude with the prospect of an alternative welfare future which may form part of the challenge against global neo-liberalism.
Synopsis
The three authors are unidentified but presumably British because of the focus of their analysis and because such notions would not be considered publishable in the US. They argue that classical Marxism can provide an analysis of social welfare that is nuanced and attuned to the contradictions of welfare in capitalist society, and that is committed both to the expansion of state welfare in the present and the abolition of capitalism and its exploitative social relations in the future. They admit that a decade ago, such ideas would have been rejected as fanciful, but point out that they look more promising in the wake Thatcherism than in the wake of the Berlin Wall. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Booknews
The three authors are unidentified but presumably British because of the focus of their analysis and because such notions would not be considered publishable in the US. They argue that classical Marxism can provide an analysis of social welfare that is nuanced and attuned to the contradictions of welfare in capitalist society, and that is committed both to the expansion of state welfare in the present and the abolition of capitalism and its exploitative social relations in the future. They admit that a decade ago, such ideas would have been rejected as fanciful, but point out that they look more promising in the wake Thatcherism than in the wake of the Berlin Wall. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)