Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated the profound social divisions which globalisation, driven by neoliberal ideology, had instrumentalised for profit interests by privatising and commodifying means and institutions of social solidarity. The global crisis evidenced that health protection and hence welfare cannot be individualised and forced governments temporarily to reverse restrictions on public welfare spending and to resort to unprecedented social control measures.
Social work is challenged to confront even more critically the contradictions inherent in capitalist welfare arrangements that manifest themselves as the polarisation e.g. of dependency vs. autonomy, individuality vs. social belonging and care vs. control. This task requires a clear political understanding of individual vulnerability and of capabilities not least in view of the forceful resistance against state control and the resurgence of nationalism and racism.
It calls for professional actions that oppose and transcend the polarisations and foster relationships of trust at all levels.