ABSTRACT
The account of the establishment of the social work business begins by exploring general aspects of the pressure on nation states to become more business-like and highlights the significance of the political strategies used by individual nation states to position social welfare in relation to the global economy. In this regard, the political strategy adopted by the first Thatcher government, elected in 1979, is discussed in terms of its exploitation of a perceived crisis in order to achieve major change in Britain. Against the backcloth of this wider context, the social services sphere of community care was used as the primary vehicle for the establishment of the social work business through two inter-related developments: marketisation and managerialism.
