This blog post introduces an article that appeared in the latest issue of the journal Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work. In that article, I offer an overview of the legacy of Erik Olin Wright (1947–2019), who was, until his untimely death in 2019, a professor of sociology and an analytical Marxist based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the USA. Wright developed a framework for what he called emancipatory social science. In this blog post, I explore one dimension of that framework – his five strategic logics for change – and consider its relevance for Aotearoa today.
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Toitū te Tiriti
David Seymour talks about seeking equality and universal human rights. This is deceptive and fraudulent. On the surface equality is a persuasive catch phrase, much like the notion of freedom (see previous post). But if you dig beneath the surface it is clear that the ACT Party’s concept of equality in Aotearoa is that we can all be (behave) like Pākēha. It is taking us back to the 1950s – we can all be equal provided you live as we say you must live. This isn’t equality, it is coloniality: assimilation. And more than this we can and must all be (behave) like rich capitalist Pākēhā. This isn’t true either – Aotearoa is a radically unequal society. This is a simple function of capitalist economics. Look around you, tell me what you see.
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Trump reconsidered
In this post I am thinking out loud. I don’t understand America, but I am trying to. It is important to develop some analysis of what has just happened. As a Socialist I am deeply worried by the global shift to the authoritarian right, the growth of nationalism and the appeal of populist politics. I see it here in Aotearoa: in Seymour’s colonialist Treaty Principles Bill and in Jones’ empty promises of a future where every man, woman and child can stuff themselves with crayfish, the way he does. Trump is dangerous – environmentally, socially, globally. I have written posts about Trump before – gobsmacked as I was when he was first elected US President in 2017.
I am interested in how the political appeal of such an overtly flawed character is generated and sustained. What are the socio-economic drivers? What are the cultural / ideological settings (and shifts) that have made this possible? It is easy, perhaps too easy, to write-off the American voting public as inherently stupid. This is too simplistic. Americans aren’t stupid – indoctrinated and manipulated maybe – but not stupid, or at least no more stupid than the rest of the human race.
Poverty, social work and social services
Mike O’Brien
As history shows, it never is a good time to be poor, but right now the climate is more hostile and dangerous than it has been for many years. There is quite a long list – attacks on beneficiaries, reductions in the calculation of benefits through changing the basis of adjustment, weakening of child poverty reduction targets, attacks on public housing, tightening of eligibility rules for assistance, dogmatic assertions about paid work as the route out of poverty despite the evidence to the contrary, funding cuts and contract cuts for the social services, cancelling of equity focus in health especially in relation to tangata whenua – and that is only a beginning of the list. Perhaps equally significantly is the fact that in the government’s quarterly list of targets, reducing poverty, especially child poverty, has never appeared, suggesting that this is not a priority and does not matter.
This post links to the most recent presentation in a series of on-line Seminars that have been organised by the Social Justice and Child Protection Research Network Aotearoa. This is a small group of academic researchers concerned with the question of social justice and the theory and practice of child protection social work, now and into the future. Current co-directors of this initiative are Emily Keddell, Kerri Cleaver, Shayne Walker and myself, Ian Hyslop. This Seminar begins to wrestle with some of the implications of abolitionist ideas for social work generally and child protection in particular. A video recording of this session is linked here and an outline of the material covered is described below.