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18 Critical Soc. Pol'y 5 (1998)

handle is hein.journals/critsplcy18 and id is 1 raw text is: 


                                                   ARTICLES


O   TONY FITZPATRICK
    University of Luton



    The  implications of ecological thought for social
    welfare



    Abstract
    Relatively little attention has been given by the discipline of social policy
    to ecological critiques. Yet if those critiques are even marginally accu-
    rate, in terms of the explanations which they offer and the assessments
    which they make, then this is a neglect which cannot continue indefi-
    nitely. The aim of this article is to help rectify such neglect. The article
    begins by reviewing the principal approaches which ecological thought
    takes to social welfare, noting various similarities and dissimilarities to
    other ideologies. It then contrasts a productivist with a non-productivist,
    or ecological, model which  the author believes could assist in the
    redesign, and Greening, of social welfare.


Introduction

Social  justice and  ecological sustainability do  not  necessarily go
together. The  objective of redistributing wealth and opportunities  is
not, in itself, concerned with how such goods are generated in the first
place, despite the fact that any future success in reducing poverty will
be  short-lived if anti-poverty strategies are based  upon  dwindling
resources. Equally, it is possible to imagine futures where  the  price
paid  for sustainability is a profound social injustice, though few  at
present regard this as either desirable or inevitable.
    Many   have  therefore recognized the  need  to evolve  approaches
to social justice which are compatible  with ecological sustainability,
and  vice versa. For  at least a decade  now,  such  a convergence   of
critiques and prescriptions has been taking place (Pepper,  1993), but

    Copyright @1998 Critical Social Policy 54 0261-0183(199802)18:1
    SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), Vol. 18(1): 5-26; 002475.


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