ABSTRACT
In the third decade of the 21st century, we are faced with a host of interconnected crises which threaten the very basis of life on Planet Earth. These include an environmental crisis; a COVID-19 pandemic estimated to have caused more than 15 million deaths worldwide; an ongoing economic crisis; a political crisis, with the growth of far-right parties and governments on a scale not seen since the 1930s; and growing inter-imperialist competition, with the threat of nuclear war now greater than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Employing a Marxist analysis, we argue that the roots of these phenomena lie in global capitalism’s relentless drive for profit at the expense of the environment and life on earth. The central part of the chapter explores the three principal ways in which the social work profession has historically responded to similar challenges – collusion, compliance and resistance – and assesses the contribution that social work today can make in challenging the forces of reaction and in furthering an agenda which foregrounds meeting human need, human rights, the environment and anti-racism, with a particular focus on the new, more radical, networks that have emerged in recent years.
