Developing Social Justice

Was social work always committed to social justice?

Malcolm PayneEmeritus Professor, Manchester Metropolitan University

Honorary Professor, Kingston University/St George’s University of London

The global definition of social work

Method -1: When is ‘early’ social work?

Historical controversy• Social help in society, or• The current iteration ‘social work’

When does the term ‘social work’ or ‘social worker’ emerge?• First usage: 1890• Early usage: UK 1912• Competing alternatives• 1928 International social work days

Oxford English Dictionary definition

Tufts, J. H. (1923) Education and Training for Social Work. New York: Russell Sage Foundation:

Devine, E. T. and Brandt, L. (1921) American Social Work in the Twentieth Century. New York: Frontier Press: 2.

Public vs ‘private’

CharityPhilanthropy

GivingSocial work

Relief Public welfare

USA & UK

Guilds of help

Poor LawWelfare services

UK

Breckinridge, S. P. (1927)Public Welfare Administration in the United States. Chicago: Chicago UP.

USA

Selected citations:“social work”books1890-1935

Method -2: text selection

Known literatureBooksBritish Library catalogue search:- “social work”- Books & monographs- oldest first- first hundred- to 1935

Selected literature, 1890-1935, preference to 1928, general materials on ‘social work’

27 books 3 papers

11 books

Known literatureLowry – papercompilation to 1938

8 papers

6 books

Exclusions (BL search): Salvation Army, other religions, foreign language

Selection criteria (Lowry): ‘General concepts’, Marcus (casework), Reynolds, Lurie (socialists)

Examples of texts and authors: 1

To illustrate the nature of the texts To illustrate the role and importance of some

of the authors

Baltimore, 1989; London, 1912

Papers: selection Lowry, F. (1939) Readings in Social Casework 1920-1938:

Selected Reprints for the Case Work Practitioner. New York: Columbia University Press (for the New York School of Social Work).• ‘General concepts underlying social work practice’

Cannon, M. A. (1928) Underlying principles and common practices in social work. In Lowry, 14-21.

Kelso, R. W. (1922) Changing fundamentals of social work. In Lowry, 3-13

Lee, P. R. (1929) Social work: cause and function. In Lowry, 22-37. Lenroot, K. F. (1935) Social work and the social order. In Lowry, 54-66. van Waters, M. (1930) Philosophical trends in modern social work. In

Lowry, 38-53. • Well-known account of the psychodynamic casework

Marcus, G F. (1935) The status of social case work today. In Lowry, 122-35.

• Well-known socialists Lurie, H. L. (1933) Case work in a changing social order. In Lowry, 755-

63. Reynolds, B. C. (1935) Social case work: what is it? what is its place in

the world today? In Lowry, 136-47.

Simon Patten: why was he important?

Edward T. Devine: why was he so important?

1896-1917 General Secretary, New York Charity Organisation Society

1897 The first to use the term ‘case work’

1904-7, 1912-17 Director, New York School of Philanthropy (from 1919 New York School of Social Work)

1904-1917 Professor of Social Economy, Columbia University

1926-8 Professor of Social Economics, American University, Washington

The Social Welfare History Project: http://www.socialwelfarehistory.com/people/devine-edward-t-3/

Social economy

Social economy finds its particular field in the study of those conditions, activities, and agencies which promote or hinder the making of every individual into an industrially efficient and hence independent human being, and in the relief of those who cannot by their own efforts realize the social standards of the community of which they are a part.

Social economy may be said to be…the community in its conscious efforts to promote the social good, to redress injustice, to overcome pauperism, and disease, and crime, to increase the points of beneficent contact with the physical and social environment.

Social work, social legislation, and social thought are the three main branches …of social economy (Devine, 1906: 18, 18, 45).

The broad object of social economics is that each individual shall be able to live a normal life according to the standard of the period and of the community. The narrower object of social work is:• (1) the care of those who through misfortune or fault are not able under exiting conditions

to realize a normal life for themselves or who hinder others from realizing it and • (2) the improvement of conditions which are a menace to individual welfare, which tend

to increase the number of dependents and interfere with the progress and best interests of others who may be in no danger of becoming dependent.

(Devine, 1922: 3)

Clement Attlee: why was he important?

Settlement experience Earliest social work lecturer appointed by the LSE Subsequently prime minister… …at the time of the creation of the post-war

welfare state

Method -2: text content

Mentions of social justice Concerns for injustice, unfairness, oppression Concerns for/identification of

oppressed/disadvantaged groups Class analysis Explicit perspective of particular oppressed groups:• Poor (paupers, pauperisation) • Women

Concern for reform, environmental interventions

Analysing the text: Devine and van Kleeck (1916)

…speaking generally it is certainly true that the so-called charitable activities of the country are faced in the forward direction; that their desire is not merely to help individuals, but to improve the conditions of life; that they think of themselves as social, educational and preventive agencies...

The change is revolutionary and complete. Almost as a matter of course workers in philanthropic activities now sympathize with wage-earners in all lawful, and perhaps in some technically unlawful, attempts to improve their condition. They recognize the absolute necessity of protecting and whenever possible raising general standards of living. They oppose child labor and a seven-day week. They are apt to go beyond labor unions themselves in favoring minimum wage laws. They have worked for compensation legislation and are getting ready for sickness and old age insurance. The very tasks in which they are engaged compel a generous sympathy with all who suffer from bad social conditions and a righteous indignation against those who profit from social injustice and inequitable laws, customs and prejudices…

Devine, E. T. and van Kleeck, M. (1916) Positions in Social Work. New York: New York School of Philanthropy: 6.

Some themes from the literature:

Explanations of social problems and the role of social work

Early accounts of social work: benevolent, judgmental

Mr William Groom, a young workman…used to observe with great distress the large number of boys who were drinking in the saloons of the city…his work became known to a few persons of wealth and position, who…agreed to guarantee a sufficient sum annually to enable him to devote his whole time to the work among the boys…the movement spread rapidly…more than a hundred boys of all sorts and sizes – many ragged with bare feet, were sitting absolutely quiet and orderly, with eager intelligent faces…No trace of anything coarse or low appeared…the rescue of boys of the most depraved and degraded class… (Grey, 1889: 1-3)

…To comfort the forlorn, to assist the struggling and to raise up the fallen…yet another outlet for that stream of Christian sympathy and benevolence…The Samaritan Fund has become increasingly important…in view of the great and widespread interest that is now taken in social work of every description…[and] is the link which connects the general curative work of the Hospital with the various organisations outside that are concerned with the poor…The instrument…by which the …Fund works is the Case Paper. This excellent method of recording the dealings with a patient is…the invention of the Charity Organisation Society, and its advantages are so manifest that it has been generally adopted by social workers and by the Poor Law authorities… (Phillips, 1912: 5-17)

Social work as broad social action - 1 The social workers of the [1850s] fully realised the evils involved in such

[poor housing] conditions, and chief among the agencies working on behalf of the poor must be placed the various societies and individuals engaged in providing and improving housing accommodation (Bosanquet, 1914: 16)

Social work in London: My brother and I used to occupy our spare time in visiting the poor districts of London and getting to know the residents. We came this way to witness many sad and pathetic, and sometimes amusing incidents. There is still great poverty in London; but it is not as bad as it used to be. I am happy to think that at the present time much more attention is being directed to the grave necessity of better houses for the people (Fox, 1924).

Under the growing factory system, the workers began to call for the advice of the expert rather than the help of the philanthropist. And so emerged the social worker in his more modern rôle. Sidney and Beatrice Webb are foremost examples of the new type. [They] stimulated others to set up organizations for research. They probed into the country’s experience and patterned anew poor relief, prisons, trade unions, coöperatives, municipal trading, and…presented a complete constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain. (Hewes, 1930: 18-19)

Social work as broad public service: 1

Social work as broad public service - 2

Macadam, E. (1925) The Equipment of the Social Worker. London: Allen and Unwin: 22-3.

Industrialisation The first duty of the social economist who would increase the efficiency of the

individual then is clear. It is to put an end to the conditions which have made men inefficient through destroying their health.

…the foundations of modern industry were laid…Labor was essential but not in all grades dignified. Power in most of the states was in the hands of a selective few...Government was the expression of the will of property holders. (Chenery, 1922: 24)

Laissez-faireism, the hands-off, policy was developed not to fend off the friendly offices of governments from infant industries, but to prevent those governments from exerting themselves in the interests of consumers and workers when the infant industries had grown great (Chenery, 1922: 25).

…the social engineer of today, as he surveys western industrial development, is sure to be caught by harmful social effects which cluster around certain old industries…We often talk of “the interest,s referring to the conscious aggressive policy of the big combinations, diverting profits to themselves at whatever cost to the small competitor or to public welfare. (Hewes, 1930: 4, 8)

The industrial revolution; laisser faire From complete freedom of contract we have moved to an ever increasing

state regulation of conditions…we now have the conception that it is the duty of the State to act as the co-ordinating factor in making all individual efforts work for the good of the citizens…to day we consider that it is possible for the community by collective action to alter man’s environment, whereas then it was thought that any interferences with environment would be acting against nature, and against all sound economic principles (Attlee, 1920: 18-19).

Social work itself has taken form and shape from the structure of economic organization……It was not until the wastes of the industrial revolution brought unemployment, overwork, and starvation, to the masses of people whose method of work and manner of life was so suddenly changed, that the adjustment of their difficulties became a major undertaking. The social worker in the guise of the benefactor and philanthropist then appeared with this for his job. The clientèle of these early social workers…did not think of themselves as members of an oppressed class. Many of them regarded their individual suffering as a dispensation of Providence. But their very numbers and their concentration in towns soon made for a sense of solidarity (Hewes, 1930, 15, 17).

The city: urbanisation In these two statements [progress derives from men’s achievements; women’s

role is motherhood and social life] lies the social core of the women’s question. We live in an age of shining economic development, of rising wealth, and of marvellous technological advances, in which, however, all of men’s planning and effort is directed toward production, achievement, and the mastery of nature. Human life as such – its emergence and its passing, its inner development – is held in low esteem. In all countries, it is a concomitant of the new structure of the economy, of the development of industry and of the growth of the big cities, that the health and life of human beings is neglected and recklessly abandoned to accident or to economic forces, that one attends to the dead machine more carefully than to the ‘human machine’ (Salomon, 1912: 231).

…the motive of loyalty to institutions can manifestly be intensified and enlarged in two directions, It can be broadened into civic patriotism; and it can be at once vitalised and humanised by a recognition of the worth and claims of the individual…(MacCunn, 1911)

Democracy The rise of democracy has changed the outlook of the social worker: formerly

social work was done for now with the working classes…today working men and women claim full citizenship…I do not intend here to go into the old controversy as to natural, political and legal rights, or to discuss the theory of the social contract. The object of our coming together and living in a society is that we may have a better chance of obtaining the means to live a good life than if we remain isolated. We claim the right to as full an opportunity of expressing our personalities as has anybody else, and that implies a duty of securing as good an opportunity for others as we have ourselves (Attlee, 1920: 19-21).

Under whatever auspices case work is destined to go forward, a respect for personality will be essential. Such respect implies a democratic point of view. Social case work cannot progress under those who have the autocratic spirit… Democracy, however, is not a form of organization but a daily habit of life. It is not enough for social workers to speak the language of democracy; they must have in their hearts its spiritual conviction of the infinite worth of our common humanity before they can be fit to do any form of social work whatsoever (Richmond, (1922: 248-9).

In spite of the rising tide of political democracy, social distinctions were well fixed at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The differences between the rich and poor were wide and deep…(Chenery, 1922: 77-8).

Child and female labour and the family Industry transferred the work of women and children from the home to the

factory. The workingman’s wife and children perforce forsook their home in order to obtain employment. To the extent to which women and children were drawn from domestic industry to factories it is accordingly fair to say that machinery entered and broke the circle of the workingman’s home. Industry has also augmented vastly the sum of national wealth and income…Have employees of industry been paid a living wage? Have wage earners had a fair share of the increased income made possible by the factory system? Have mechanics and laborers been able to obtain justly proportionate shares of the wealth in whose creation they have played so essential a part? (Chenery, 1922: 77)

Abundant immigration from Europe, however valuable its social and political consequences may have been, has tended to keep full the reservoir of “surplus” workers and has made possible the continuance of a low wage system. (Chenery, 1922: 94)

Social work and religious work By social work we mean, of course, an endeavour to remedy or prevent social evils, or to

promote social well-being. …”Social Work” rightly understood is something more than even the sum of the efforts to

deal in detail with the aggregate of social imperfections. It should not aim only at dealing with things as they are, it should rather imply “all kinds of work done by people with the specific intention of making the world better and happier.” (Professor S. J. Chapman)(Chadwick, 1909: 10)

…social work gives and very tangible and very necessary object to religious work; while, if we regard our social work from the religious point of view, we are immediately provided with the right spirit in which it should be done, and the true motive for it (Chadwick, 1909: 18)

Social evils, as we all know, are physical and moral disorders resulting from the non-observance of the laws of justice and charity which should regulate the life of the community…We are bound always to combat moral evil, and as for physical, there is a vast current of it which is connected with the former, either as cause or effect, and which, therefore, we should aim at removing, without being afraid of changing the character of life as essentially a time of probation or trial. (Gibbs, 1911: 1, 1-2)

Socialist Christianity The New Era: A Review of Social Work and Movements in the

Churches (Title banner, 1892) The policy of The New Era will follow Christian Socialist

lines…We do not look for the solution of social problems to the rigid and heartless theories of a Liberalistic economy which teaches that [people are commodities], that the law of free competition was given by Moses, that selfishness because a natural is a laudable instinct…

We hold that any theory of economic relationships which overlooks the dignity of [human] descent…and the unknown potentiality of good and nobility which dwells within [people], is a crass blasphemy against both God and humanity. (Editorial, The New Era 1-2)

Religion and social conservatism - 1 The most obvious weakness of religion in social action is that it always

seems to create a spirit of generosity within terms of a social system, without developing an idealism vigorous or astute enough to condemn the social system in the name of a higher justice. Religion, in other words, is more fruitful of philanthropy than of social justice…Frequently it is religion’s sense of the absolute that betrays it into social conservatism…The world of injustice is taken for granted… Slavery was taken for granted… (Niebuhr, 1932: 18-19).

The strong emphasis on the doctrine of self-sacrifice has again and again tempted the church into a critical attitude toward the assertion of rights on the part of the oppressed, on the ground that this represented an expression of selfishness. The inclination to interpret the nonresistance of Christ as an example for all those who suffer from social injustice appears again and again in Christian history, and betrays the church into an acceptance of social injustice because injustice can not be resisted without the assertion of self-interest and the return of evil for evil (Niebuhr, 1932: 21).

Religion and social conservatism - 2 Another root of the social conservatism of religion, which tempts it to practice

charity within the limitations of a social system without raising ultimate questions about the justice of the system itself, is the natural determinism of religion. ..Paul put the logic of determinism clearly in Romans 13: 1-2• Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God;

the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.

The idea that social and political arrangements must be virtuous because they exist under an omnipotent God who could change them if he would, grows out of a natural inclination in the very heart of religion…to aggrandize the object of worship, God, until it becomes coextensive with the whole of reality. A variant of this doctrine was to assume that the present status of society was ordained of God after the fall, to deal with man’s sinful condition….Religious determinism has again and again betrayed the institutions of religion into an attitude of indifference toward the miseries of the poor, the argument being that God has ordained poverty, as well as the fate of the particular individuals who suffer from its deprivations (Niebuhr, 1932: , 22-23).

Religion and socially conservatism - 3 …religion is…preoccupied with the motives of ethical actions and finds it difficult

to deal with the entire situation (Niebuhr, 1932: 24). Religion does not deal with the problems of justice, for justice is a concept

which emerges when a careful calculation is made of conflicting rights and competing responsibilities. Equalitarianism, which is the most rigorous type of justice, has never been born out of the heart of religion…It is when intelligence discounts all the deceptions and hypocrisies by which inequalities of privilege are maintained and justified that the idea of equality, as a rational goal of social organization emerges (Niebuhr, 1932: 27).

Since the depression reached America, we have been treated to the hypocrisies which flow from voluntary charity upon a national scale. America alone, of all industrial nations, has failed to learn the lesson that voluntary charity is insufficient to establish justice or to alleviate actual human suffering when society deals with a basic problem of the distribution of wealth (Niebuhr, 1932: 29)

US social context - 1: the frontier [Humanity] has faced three extraordinary problems. the first was

the simplest: taking possession of the physical world, the appropriation of natural resources. The second was more complex: the organization of industry, the working out of an industrial system. The third is the most perplexing: the spiritual direction of human affairs. The leader in the first of these tasks was the pioneer, the frontiersman (Devine, 1906: 1-2).• Economic efficiency in industry requires social effectiveness

The pioneer nation…The employment of women and children was universal during the years prior to the establishment of the factory system in the United States…their toil was limited to the home and to agriculture and to domestic industry…The mechanical revolution changed only the kind of work done (Chenery, 1922: 23)

US social context – 2: voluntarism & the state

The first world war When the war brought demands from a host of new and old organizations…a hot-house

development of the fundamental idea in federations was enforced. “War chests” were set up…(Devine and Brandt, 1921: 35).

No movement in American philanthropy was more profoundly influenced by the civilian activities of the World War than the coöperative movement (Norton, 1927: 112) [for coordination of services: also the demand for training and regulated standards of practice].

The first effect of the war on social work in American…was to strengthen and improve it. Sympathy for the sufferings in Europe quickened sensitiveness to social problems at home. The whole world became a laboratory of social work…When the United States entered the war, in April 1917, social work leaped into unprecedented prominence…In general, the effect of the war has been to confirm the principles of social work and to commend them to a larger public…(Devine and Brandt, 2921: 44).

Conspicuous among [events influencing social work’s development] are the World War,…war service and subsequent peace time program[s], the succession of disasters and the establishment of a disaster relief routine. Not least among these events is one whose importance cannot yet be evaluate, namely the economic depression which set in in 1929, and which may lead to far-reaching changes in the nature, auspices and personnel of social work (Cannon and Klein, 1933: 4).

At this time there are many men and women who have received a strong impression from the war period, of their duty to work unselfishly for the community…(Attlee, 1920: 27)

Economics The myth of economic man …is the belief that a man will always act from motives of

material self-interest…[But] no one set of motives determines behavior …a political, religious or family motive might at any time overturn the customary economic behavior…

Closely connected with the myth of the economic man is the myth of individualism and the policy of non-interference by the government in any business or trade. This we call laissez faire. It came with the industrial revolution…John Maynard Keynes traced the life history of this myth…

[T]he economists have renounced this enticingly simple and beautiful theory that laissez faire is the path to universal welfare. This was because the tragic effects of its operation were forced upon their attention. They observed the complications which must be taken into account when we come to deal with large units of production, when production is a prolonged process, and when a monopoly disturbs the balance of bargaining power. (Hewes 1932: 90-3).

…Ricardo said that labor was “the foundation of all value”…the relative value of commodities was …determined by the relative quantity of labor which produced them. [But] the desire or demand for goods is not necessarily related to the labor which has been expended upon them…The labor theory of value was swallowed up in another myth…the law of diminishing returns. (Hewes, 1932: 94-5)

Abundance Food is abundant, income grows, and machines do the old drudgeries. That

work is pleasant, the environment is good and human nature is a group of ennobling qualities are now axioms that contrast the new thought with the old philosophy of deficit so long taught and so ardently defended. The depraved man is not the natural man; for in him the natural is suppressed beneath a crushing load of misfortunes, superstitions and ill-fitting social conventions. But in spite of the good hope that follows, elation is replaced by dejection as soon as we remember that poverty is scarcely mitigated by prosperity. The normal qualities of human nature are modified so slowly and under such complex conditions that the reformer often believes himself helpless to make the improvement he longs for. (Patten, 1907[1968]:

Economists supplemented these observations of the social workers and confirmed their convictions by pointing to the material resources and prosperity of America, and suggesting that there was no excuse for want and misery. (Devine and Brandt, 1921: 18)

We have the means of producing all the material necessities of a good life…in abundance…The one thing necessary is the getting of the human will to operate…(Attlee, 1920: 23)

Abundance and the new theory of poverty …the distinctions between [people] on the two sides of the line of poverty are frailer

than we have been led to believe…Poverty is not rooted in a debased heredity nor in a world-wide lack of work…the depletion of energy, induced and aggravated by misfortunes is the crucial distinction between poverty and normal [people]…

But health, vigor and right conditions would soon change all this, and race types would fade with the differences between environments and the quantities of energy within them… [People in poverty] must be encouraged by methods that stir positive people to deeds that seem to be heroic and marvellous…

[A vagrant who rescues a child from a burning building] was instantly responsive and energetic in a sudden interesting situation. But the indirect action, the round-about methods of the industrial world did not stimulate.

Efficiency [productivity in industry] is indirect work; generosity [charity by the rich] is indirect enjoyment….A rich man who never gives is as abnormal as the poor man who never works.

It therefore becomes the social worker’s first task to discover how faculties be made active, how industry may be stimulated, and how [people] may be surrounded – rich and poor alike – with conditions that shall renew energy and after every expenditure of it bring it back greater than it went out.

(Patten, 1907: 206-211)

Chenery, 1922

Traditional class talk The very existence of the degraded class was a standing

insult and injury to the genuine worker, who shared its reputation for idleness and inefficiency and was deprived by it of the succour which should have come to him in times of misfortune (Bosanquet, 1914: 5)

…class distinctions, springing as they do from inequality of natural endowments, are essential to human society…That such class distinction is necessary for progress and is consistent with individual liberty, that it entails mutual obligations between the classers who, united by a bond of love, should help one another to attain their final end in heaven and their material and moral well-being on earth. (Gibbs, 1911: 14)

Class talk, 1930s-style With the winning of political ascendency, the middle class took over responsibility

for the affairs of the community and organized social work…Oftentimes with a genuine desire to help there was a combined desire to “keep the workers contented” and also a wish to win social distinction through benevolence (Hewes, 1920: 17)

The shift in social classes which was the result of post-war industrial and political factors in Germany had the effect of changing…the work of the private agencies and the personnel of their workers…Dr Alice S[a]lomon…tells us that it was questioned whether there was any sphere for private social agencies in a socialistic republic…all welfare work should be “socialized” or “municipalized.” “From the people, for the people, not ‘From the upper classes for the lower’.”…“[S]ocial workers should be taken from the ranks of the class…of the people for whom the work is intended.” (Hewes, 1930: 19)

The attitude of the middle class churches to…radical religious programs was frequently inspired by a self-righteous feeling that poverty is due to vice and laziness and that social comfort is the inevitable reward of virtue. This kind of complacency may have been the natural attitude of middle class life with its individualism, its lack of social imagination, its blindness to the more profound social issues…But since it clothed itself…in the garments of religious piety…it must be mentioned as a social attitude which religion sometimes produces or justifies (Niebuhr, 1932: 31).

Aims and causes …the scientifically trained worker, who has been trained to look beneath

phenomena to their causes, to look beyond…the pathological conditions of society and the sources of these – for poverty, unemployment, intemperance, etc., may be regarded as social diseases – …will be no more content to do ambulance work than the scientifically trained physician is content to alleviate symptoms…a permanent restoration to a condition of physical or economic welfare is made possible (Chadwick, 1909: 13-14)

…no mere giving of money can be a substitute for personal service. Such an action is not a “social” act…(Chadwick, 1909: 15)

Human welfare is that agar-agar in which grow the cultures of about all the “isms” that [people] have ever invented…Your statesman defines well-being as that state of perfection in which the greatest good is accruing from national life to the greatest number of those who make up the nation…the economist defines [it]…to mean the maximum production of wealth…Your socialist must see equality of outlook and privilege and, so far as possible, an equality of goods, society being to this end highly organized to protect the weak as well as the strong…(Kelso, 1928: 7)

Some themes from the literature:

Social work: continuities and changes

Example of progression from old terminology and interactions of issues

We, and the world with us, have passed from an age of charity to an epoch of constructive social service, charitable in a truer sense, reaching out toward justice. (8)

Our vision of social solidarity has brought a new fundamental into our treatment of the insane and the mentally defective. (9)

Industrial justice. Today we see that this battle between capital and labor is like the campaign in Belgium…Leaders on both sides of the issue see…now recognise four elements of the question, namely, capital, labor, business management, and the public; greatest of these is the public (12).Kelso, R. W. (1922) Changing fundamentals of social work. In Lowry

(Presidential Address, National Conference of Social Work 1922)

Social work aims “Doing good” was the old phrase for social service…We should

welcome…the evident desire of social workers to abandon claims to respect based upon good intentions alone…A majority of them are engaged in case work – in work, that is, which has for its immediate aim the betterment of individuals and families, one by one, as distinguished from their betterment in the mass. Mass betterment and individual betterment are interdependent, however, social work and social case work of necessity progressing together (Richmond, 1917: 1).

The instinct of [humanity] is toward generosity, mutual dependence and mutual helpfulness…Social work…as it is expressed today on a giant scale of organization…is a new and vitalized way of expressing these old instincts…Destiny determined that American society should be individualistic from its beginning…the individualism of the [Pilgrim] Fathers…(Norton, 1927: 1-3)

Richmond (1922): personality & environment Social case work consists of those processes which develop

personality through adjustments, consciously effected, individual by individual between [people] and their social environment (98-9)

…the environment ceases to be environment in space merely – it widens to the horizon of [human] thought, to the boundaries of [our] capacity for maintaining relationships, and it narrows to the exclusion of all those things which have no real influence on [our] emotional, mental and spiritual life (99)

…it is our personality which relates us closely to our human kind; not only to the socius our brother, but to all the communities and institutions he has developed. There is no conflict between the idea of individual differences…and this complementary idea of relatedness (92).

Oher professions have social concepts and social objectives, but…only social work never has a purely individual objective…the most individualistic of social case workers must think, as he treats his client, of the reaction of such treatment upon the client’s family, his associates and the community. The treatment is for the purpose of furthering his capacity to organize his own normal social activities…The development of individual personality as such…is more normally the aim of the teacher, psychiatrist, and priest than of the social worker, whose concern is with the personality in interaction with the social environment. (17-18)

…social work has a common objective, namely, the capacity of communities and individuals to organize their own social activities…(18)

A principle inherent in this common method of social work is…participation. The client or community takes active part in making and carrying out the plan of social organization. (19)

Inherent in the practice of social work is a philosophy of individual and social responsibility (Cannon, 1928: 17-18, 18, 19, 21)• Karpf’s (1931) study of family case work in New York in the 1920s found that most work

was individualistic and decisions were not based on coherent use of evidence

Individualism in social work

Social work includes compassion, focus on individual and reform: van Waters (1930)

We live in a social order based on the personality of [human beings]…The social worker assumes the responsibility for integration, the process of making whole, the various resources of well-being in the community. (45-6)

…the social worker’s attitude does not spring primarily from compassion. He sees the suffering individual as an integral part of the whole, not as a burden but as a challenge. (47)

Human personality has intrinsic value for the social worker, not because it can be molded or rehabilitated, but because it is worthy of respect in its own right. No rehabilitation is required to make a human being worthy of respect. (48)

…social workers derive from trends of thought quite distinct from those that produce reformers. Reformers have commonly a low opinion of [humanity]…the reformer would like you to believe he knows, better than you yourself know, what is best for you to do. (49)

Social workers have been criticised for having no inclusive program of social betterment…Social work has realized that a program cannot make [people] moral, religious, or happy…The true springs of action are in the internal nature of [human beings].. Hence the uselessness of programs, particularly those dependent upon state action or force. (53)

van Waters, M. (1930) Philosophical trends in modern social work. In Lowry, 38-53.

Social work and case work The other forms of social work, all of which interplay with casework are three – group work. Social

reform, and social research. (Richmond, 1922: 223) Most modern civilised states have assumed certain humanitarian tasks…[T]hey have come to be

almost universally recognised as appropriate subjects of state action, and provision for them is assumed to be a function of state agencies. ..To many observers it is becoming clear that…this work must be based on an adequate knowledge of the need to the individual to whom the service is rendered, on the basis of “social diagnosis,” followed by an adequate treatment of the special pathological conditions revealed in his situation. That is the principles of social service and the technique of “case work” are commanding wider acceptance in the public welfare field (Breckinridge, 1927: 2)

[Grace Marcus reviews criticisms of social case work]…case work is a sop to the underprivileged, obscures the issues of social justice, imposes on the individual the cruel burden of adapting himself to a psychotic society, and, in so far as it succeeds, constitutes a brake on social action. (124)

Mary Richmond…collected and sifted the results of years of empirical work…In its firm stress on the deductive method her work established the individualizing principle of study and treatment as basic in the theory and practice of case work. After Mary Richmond came the psychiatric deluge. (125-6)

The boundaries of case work are narrow...So far as social work is concerned, its utilization of case work data and case work experience has too frequently respected neither their meaning nor their value. No branch of social work and no specialized activity within social work is released from the common obligation to understand the individual in relation to the problems of living (Marcus, 1935: 134-5).

Lee’s ‘cause and function’ ‘A function…implies an organized effort incorporated into the machinery of

community life in the discharge of which the acquiescence, at least, and ultimately the support of the entire community is assumed’. (23)

‘As a cause, a movement secures solidarity and force from its inherently dramatic appeal…The motives which lead [people] to support a function as an obligation of citizenship are in no sense lower or less worthy than those which lead [people] to enlist in a cause.’ (25)

‘The abolition of poverty, the prevention of crime, the elimination of preventable disease, the reduction of industrial handicaps to workers are causes. They need no justification save their inherent appeal to the justice and enlightened social consciences of [people].

'The functional development of social work I interpret as the effort of our civilization to give corporate life to the ideas which have inspired the world’s great causes in behalf of suffering, underprivileged humanity. Civilization, however, is dead unless it retains the capacity to develop new ideas as well as to insure the permanence and efficacy of those to which it has given corporate life…Efficient social work everywhere means the constant discovery of new evils, of ancient evils in new forms…Good social work creates the necessity for more social work.’

Lee, Porter R. (1929) Social work: cause and function. In Lowry 22-37

Prevention Social workers chafe at the futility of their efforts at repair, and

long for a campaign of prevention. They soon realize, however, that the task of prevention is more complex and involved than medical-social treatment (Cannon, 1913: 204)

One of the ideas which became dominant among social workers early in the present century was that “prevention is better than relief”. (Devine and Brandt, 1921: 18)

All these new activities, in turn, had a reflex influence on older forms of social work. As the idea of prevention took hold, and as the significance of [many serious] social problems, came to be realized, those who were engaged in the relief of the poor…found their task growing more and more complex. (Devine and Brandt, 1921: 25)

Cabot (1919) on social therapeutics Social treatment is giving and constructing…We make elaborate social plans, but we know that

many of them are going to fail…but they will not be flat failures if along the way we have tried to treat people, not as they deserve, but a great deal better….We want to try to build in and with the person some capacity to get that pleasure for himself after we have gone out of his life…I have to go back to the parallelism of money and morphine. A person comes to us with pain and begs of money or its equivalent – direct immediate relief...[We can give money] without doing any harm when it is not going to lead to the repetition of the same demand…[t]he safest form of giving, that which is surest to perpetuate itself, to be planted like a seed and go on without our having to stand by it, is giving information…one of the most precious kinds of information is information on how to secure more information,…Education is what social workers try to give most often, most consciously, over the longest time and sometimes with the greatest results…

Gratitude seems to me ultimately the motive of social work…We are painfully aware of what has been given to us…We are eager therefore to pass that on in any such form as it can be received…I have dwelt already on the great lack of beauty and of art in social work, on its ugliness and drabness, and on the care-worn look in the social worker’s face. But no one who is vividly conscious of the gifts of beauty which have come into his life can continue to make his attempts at social work as unbeautiful as they haver been hitherto. If we have any sense of gratitude to the people that have cared for us, we want to pass on that affection…We ought to give and build, because the effects of any giving that is not also building will not last…We ought to give and take…We can give only what we have taken…[Social workers] are often led into giving without providing for any adequate source of renewal. They are not taking in enough to have anything to give out. They give until they are drained dry, squeezed out (Cabot, 1919: 179-81).

Reform - 1 …group action for the relief of distress and the increase of efficiency is both possible

and essential…(Devine, 1906: 26) The knowledge of [the community] is of special importance to one who works among

needy families, since he must use them constantly in the rehabilitation of individual families. Conversely, he should learn from the study of dependency in these families what reforms are most needed, and be able to focus the efforts of all agencies with a social program in order to secure the reforms thus made real to him. (Ryington: 1912: 5)

…the “organized social movements”…a technique strikingly similar to that used by the early abolitionists, temperance reformers and advocates of women’s rights…[they]are the result of fresh consideration of particular evils. In the past twenty years one destructive social force after another has been singled out for special study…Conspicuous among them…are the movements for the prevention of tuberculosis, cardiac disease, blindness, venereal disease, infant mortality, for the control of cancer, to abolish extortionate charges for loans…to promote wholesome recreation, to diminish child labor, to improve the health of children, to further industrial education, to advance the interests of the Negro, to reform the criminal law…to prevent insanity and promote mental health, to improve housing conditions, to improve and standardize labor legislation. (Devine and Brandt, 1921: 20).

Reform - 2 Too often the social worker, from a want of wide

knowledge of the structure, the processes, and the laws governing the welfare of society as a whole deals with each case, as he will sometimes boast “individually.”…A “Vision of the whole” would teach him that his energies might be more usefully expended in trying to remove these causes than in being content to assuage the sufferings of case after case which they were producing…One reason for the increased number of social workers is that undoubtedly, and entirely for the good, the public conscience is becoming far more sensitive to the existence of social evils and to the inevitable results of these (Chadwick, 1909: 23-4).

Advocacy

One of the simple and yet honestly useful things that we can do in social work is to give a man a hearing ...But this implies unusual powers of listening on the social worker's part…...the power of the creative listener to enlarge and to remake a personality is not capable of limit...Just to state our difficulties clearly to another person who will listen not merely sympathetically but creatively, and with resistance as well as furtherance, is of value (Cabot, 1919: 170-2).

Commentary in the 1930s: Reynolds [S]ocial work concerns itself with human beings where there is anything that hinders or

thwarts their growth, their expanding consciousness, their increasing coöperation. Social case work is that form of social work which assist the individual while he struggles to relate himself to his family, his natural groups, his community

…we shall use no methods that in themselves hamper the growth of the human spirit. We cannot take people by the throat and say, “Do as I say and you shall grow.” We cannot help them to live coöperatively with others if we ourselves are not willing to submit to the self-discipline necessary for coöperation with the laws of growth.

…what possible place has [social work] in a world that seems bent upon destruction of human life? “Life is for growth” sounds like a grim joke in a world kindling into the flames of war…We know better now than to glorify war…, yet we spend millions in preparation for it and then say that a nation cannot afford milk, for its babies and the conditions of healthy growth and opportunities for adequate education for all its children.

Obsessed with the idea that [people are] degraded by receiving anything for which [they] do not work, this topsy-turvy world of ours does not bend its energies to solving the problems of the creation of opportunities for real work at real wages. It rather safeguards first profits and dividends which are awarded without reference to work performed, and then provides meagerly for the vistims of its econom,ic mistakers under conditions of receiving the necessities of life as degrading to self-respect as could well be. (Reynolds, 1935: 136-7

Commentary in the 1930s: Lurie The social problems of industry are highly complicated and refractory. Failure to solve them is

chiefly responsible for the continued mass f economically maladjusted individuals for whom social agencies exist. This failure and the remedial and palliative nature of social case work re are now recognizing…We face a large increase in the standing army of the unemployed augmented from time to time by further technological changes an increased difficulty in absorbing into gainful employment the less effective and partially handicapped members of our population, the vanishing of opportunities for low wage satisfactory vocational adjustment of the young, and a further possibility of low wage standards in many occupations, and a further shrinkage of the potential working life of the average individual with a more rapid displacement of the middle-aged.

Accompanying our program for improving social welfare through individual case adjustments we have developed overintensive service for those individuals or families that presented either particularly difficult personal problems or the need for long-term relief. This was perhaps a logical, though largely ineffective substitute for adequate social provisions……No longer can we overlook the fact that much of the maladjustment and distress with which case work deals is rooted in inadequate or faulty economic and social organization.

The conclusion to be drawn…is that the future of social work lies more in the organization of social forces than in methods of case work. The program of the social agency needs to be redefined with a clearer recognition of the obstacles which hinder service and with more attention to organizing effective social remedies.

Lurie, H. L. (1933) Case work in a changing social order in Lowry, 755-63.

Public and private

…both public and private auspices will continue to be necessary…The public agency must be able to assure some degree of continuity of policy, free from political party control…[c]ertain forms of case work may well make greater advances and certainly serve a larger clientele under public management than under private. (Richmond, 1922: 248)

Service and social service …movements [for social change] are fundamentally based on a belief in our moral

responsibility for one another. “Prevention” and “efficiency” are their watchwords, and the spirit of social service is their impelling motive... (Cannon, 1913: 200).

A lasting contribution of hospital social service to the institution in which it is conducted can be made only when that service becomes an expression of forces within the institution…Those in control of hospital activities – the officers; physicians, and nurses – must have a social interest before their institution can become socially efficient in any measure approximating the ideal (Cannon, 1913, 201).

It is then to the spirit of social service…that we must look for the new motive to replace, or at least reinforce, that of self-interest…Thus, the more we can get the idea of social service as the main motive for all our work, the more likely are we to find a peaceable solution to our present discontents (26)…the maker of machinery or boots must regard his work from the standpoint of its satisfying certain wants of the community as well as supplying him with a living (Attlee, 1920: 26-7).

[social workers]…are illumined by conviction that the spirit of service is an expression of the highest development of the human personality. The pioneers are marked by serenity and gladness: no one ever heard of a disillusioned pessimistic veteran social worker. (van Waters, 1930, 52)

Themes: prevention Social workers chafe at the futility of their efforts at repair

and long for a campaign of prevention. They soon realize, however, that the task of prevention is more complex and involved than medical-social treatment. Campaigns of education…must be preceded by careful analysis of the varying contributory causes, and of the possibilities for effecting a change…The thoroughly trained hospital social worker as agent of the socially-conscious hospital, reflecting the scientific attitude of the medical profession and bringing to medical conditions the special knowledge of the social worker, has opportunities for research which have not yet ben fully appreciated. (Cannon, 1913: 206-7)

Progress: social Darwinism,progressivist and idealist movements

Progress in thought is obtained by a change from conventional standards to ideal standards…Activities are either self-centred or social. We can have a selfish programme or we can have a social programme, but we cannot have an ideal programme; for programmes relate to activities and not to thought…To be effective ideal constructive thought must be transferred into practical social work, and hence the need of the contrast between ideal ends and the indirect means by which they are reached…(Patten, 1907: 215-6)

The idea of individual happiness is basic in our human concept of progress…the great aim of life [But] [T]here is thus far no truly satisfactory definition of human progress; hence there can be no final assurance as to what constitutes human welfare (Kelso, 1928: 8).• Kelso’s thinking is social Darwinist: ‘human society vs the natural cosmos’

One of the older attacks on the position of the social worker emanated from the teachings of Darwin…Darwin refused to carry the doctrine of natural selection to its logical conclusion, that we should refrain from aiding those who cannot aid themselves…[T]hese writers do not appreciate the significance of the social environment…[N]atural selection is never neutral under social conditions. Society determines [a person’s] life from…birth, from even before …birth…It is this fact which distinguishes [humanity] most definitely from the lower animals, and the further a civilisation advances the remoter become the conditions udner which natural selection can freely operate (MacIver, 1931: 24)

Limitation of social order roles Persons who may be suspicious or resentful of our

approach if we appear primarily as investigators, or primarily as persons concerned with economic or moral control, will welcome the visitor if she appears as the arm…of the medical institution where they have already found welcome and relief …Because disease is the common enemy of [humanity], all sorts and conditions of [people] are instinctively drawn together when it becomes necessary to resist the attacks of disease as the enemy of the human family (Cabot, 1919: 4).

Complexity …where we find increasing complexity of conditions we find also an

increasing tendency towards specialisation which constantly grows narrower and more intense. Social differentiation follows social integration. (Chadwick, 1909: 21)

Modern means of production and communication have created a society in which millions of [people] are brought into terms of economic interdependence without having any necessary organic relationship or sense of moral and spiritual fellowship. The modern factory units thousands of workers in a common enterprise…If they achieve some kind of moral unity through their own organizations and unions, it must frequently be done in defiance of the factory ownership. The “production belt”, which tyrannically synchronizes the labor of hundreds, creates no spiritual bond between them. The modern city is as impersonal and mechanical as the factory (Niebuhr, 1932: 76).

Social progress

...the lessening of disease is important not only for health and comfort, but for economic welfare and social progress (Cannon, 1913: 2).

…people sometimes fear that as social work becomes controlled by science, its emotional inspiration will be lost. But the antithesis here suggested is a false one. Science has nothing to say about the ends of life but only about the relation between means and ends…The social worker has a progressive task if he is not to become or remain a mere technician and empiric (MacIver, 1931: 5,9).

Women: first-wave feminism Numerous demands voiced by the women’s movement are linked to this goal. There is

the call for more intensive education and particularly the call for greater emphasis on socially oriented education for young women; then, too, the demands for admission to public office and the granting of civil rights, for better vocational training, the creation of women’s organizations, protection for female workers, and motherhood insurance. All this points on the one hand toward one group of women taking on new responsibilities and another group whose members are oppressed, having its burdens lightened. One sort of woman should leave her household so as, at least to a modest extent, to enable another sort to return to hers.

Inasmuch as the education and care-oriented functions that women formerly fulfilled with the family have now migrated into the areas of state and local government, women must similarly make the leap from the family into the area of public life. They must emerge from the familial and private sphere, performing their activities in public institutions if their influence is not to be lost for the purpose of cultural development. For this reason, the women’s movement must demand the vote. This demand emerges organically from all other strivings by women, because without full recognition as a citizen in the state and in the municipality, a woman is hindered in her efforts to become socially effective. (Salomon, 1912: 234-5)

Some themes from the literature:

Social justice?

Examples of social justice talk The Social Service movement of modern times…has arisen out of a deep discontent with society

as at present constituted…It is…the expression of the desire for social justice, for freedom and beauty, and for the better apportionment of all the things that make up a good life. It is the constructive side of the criticism passed by the reformer and the revolutionary on the failure of our industrialised society to provide a fit environment where a good life should be possible for all. (Attlee, 1920: 2-3)

In philosophy and program social work…has been concerned with • (1) provision of a material basis for life, health and decency for those in need; • (2) adjustment of individuals to their own capacities, limitations, and environment; and • (3) an economic and social order which will produce a fair balance between effort and reward – in other words, social

justice. (57-8) ….the emerging purpose of social work be grouped as follows:

• …3. Social justice through fair and ordered relationships between groups, with adequate opportunities for all groups…(49-50)

Social justice has been thwarted not only by economic exploitation, but also by unreasoning race prejudice, misunderstanding of persons of alien origin and discrimination against them, and political favoritism. (59)

To the presupposition of freedom we are now adding the presupposition of collective responsibility for individual welfare, involving an ordered economy with final acceptance by government of social responsibility. The contribution which social work makes to the general acceptance of the objective of social security and the development of effective instruments for collective action will determine in part our success in uniting economic security with cultural freedom and spiritual achievement based on widely varied interests and associations. (59)Lenroot, K. F. (1935) Social work and the social order. In Lowry, 54-66.

Injustice and industrial/economic power Among the great body of workers who are agitating for an improvement

in their condition perhaps a growing sense of injustice is the strongest of all the forces which is impelling them to act thus…Various attempts have been made…to adjust the wages to the profits of an industry; we can see, however, that under the present methods of the organisation of industry this is very difficult. (Chadwick, 1909: 31)

All essential power in our modern society is economic power, the power of ownership. Economic power is always able to bend political power to its own uses. Economic power has always been extremely formidable, but in modern society it has risen to greater heights and become the source of more injustice than any other, because the private ownership of the productive processes and the increased centralization of the resultant power in the hands of a few, make inevitably for irresponsibility (Niebuhr, 2932: 77)

Conclusions In the period 1890-1930… …early social work literature shifts from an individualist, economically liberal

ideology… …towards the ‘new economic theory of poverty’, including… …direct analysis of social justice and a social change/equality perspective

• Analysis of poverty, women’s rights, race, class• Even in the classics of case work literature, social change (often seen as reform) is

documented as integral to the role of social work• There is commentary on the social conservatism of economic liberalism and

religion as roots of social work• Social work is seen as part of the reaction against evils deriving from

industrialisation, urbanisation, liberal economic laisser faire assumptions underlying policy…

• …moving towards social idealism, coherent state social provision BUT practice methods analysis remained individualistic in this context Very much like today?

Recent books

First publication: Chicago, LyceumEuropean publication:

Social Work in End-of-life and Palliative Care (with Margaret Reith). Bristol Policy Press. (2009)

Humanistic Social Work: Core Principles in Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. (2011)Citizenship Social Work with Older People. Bristol: Policy Press. (2011)First publication: Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, Chicago, Lyceum.

Modern Social Work Theory (4th edition) (2014)