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2 Critical Soc. Pol'y 4 (1982)

handle is hein.journals/critsplcy2 and id is 1 raw text is: 








Notes on this issue

Critical Social Policy has survived its first year and now has a substantial readership
among  the academic social science community and a smaller but important one among
both  employees  of social service and  allied departments and  generally among
socialists, feminists, and other radicals who are concerned about the possibilities of
furthering the struggle for transformed socialist welfare services. CSP is also beginning
to attract an international readership which finds reflection in the introduction into this
anniversary issue of an'international' article. In future each issue will contain either an
article written outside the UK, or one focusing on welfare policy in an international
context.
   The first article is Moving right out of welfare- and the way back by Hilary Rose
and Steven Rose. It focuses on the particular Thatcherite solution to the crisis in Britain
as it affects social welfare. The authors analyse the growth of the new right and in
particular the success gained by its reliance on sociobiology - (its appeal to human
nature to justify restructuring the welfare services away from the state provision
towards those of the market and the family) in terms of the failure of the left to go beyond
a defence of the welfare state. This defence did not match people's lived experiences of
welfare whereas the new  sociobiology matched human   concerns more  closely. The
article argues that only a transformatory vision of social welfare can take on the new
right on the ideological terrain. This vision must grow out of feminism  and the
humanistic tradition of Marx as interpreted, for example, by Heller. A radical theory of
human  need  is central to this, it is argued.
   The second article examines the limitations to and possibilities for a radical social
work  practice. Jeff Hearn's article Radical social work - contradictions, limitations
and politicalpossibilities presents a framework for analysing the social limitations that
can  lead to  the deradicalisation of radical social work. It discusses also the
'problematic' relationship ofmarxism and social work and concludes with the argument
that a more fruitful basis for a radical social work practice might be feminism. This
article is published with a rejoinder by Phil Lee, The wrong place and the wrong time -
maybe.  It is hoped that this will stimulate a debate in the pages of Critical SocialPolicy
about the current state of and possibilities for radical social work.
   Next comes  a further contribution to the council house sales debate in the form of a
short article by Michael Harloe entitled Towards the decommodification ofhousing?
A  comment  on council house sales.
   The last piece in the articles section is the first ofCSP's 'international' articles. It is
by Vicente Navarro and entitled The crisis ofthe international capitalist order and its
implications for the welfare state. It is an encyclopaedic survey and analysis of the
international capitalist crisis and its impact on welfare policy in a large number of
Western  and Third World  countries. It notes the adoption by a number of capitalist
governments  of mainly market but sometimes corporatist solutions to the crisis. The
article is well documented with a particularly devastating summary of the impact of
Reagan's  public expenditure and tax policy on welfare programmes in the USA.
   The Struggles in the welfare state section of the journal is a piece on being a housing
aid worker which  pursues some of the themes discussed by Jeff Hearn in a different
context  The  problems encountered  in the attempt to be radical in this setting are
analysed.
   The  Commentary   on socialpolicy section includes an examination of USA social
policy  developments  under Reagan.  This is a useful factual complement   to the


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