The State

Abstract

As the demystification of the welfare state proceeds and is allied, so far as many social workers on the left are concerned, with disillusionment over professionalism and the possibilities of combating welfare bureaucracies, so social workers as State employees find themselves placed in a situation of considerable political confusion. In their daily lives they experience the inadequacies of State provision and the way in which the agencies of the State appear to define, categorise and dispose of clients in a manner which reinforces their problems rather than alleviates them. Social workers’ confusion centres around, firstly, how to understand structurally the situation in which they are placed and, secondly, how to respond to this situation in a politically effective manner The inability of many social workers to act effectively derives in part from the fact that their analysis of the State and its welfare functions remains at a relatively undeveloped level. In particular, many social workers on the left are confused because of the contradictory positions they appear to have to adopt as a result of their perspective on, and relationship to, the welfare state.