Social work and human rights : the 'human', the 'social' and the collapse of modernity

There are increasing signs that the neo-liberal order, which has been the norm for Western democracies since the 1980s, is being eroded and has become unsustainable (Bello 2103; Harvey 2015; Mason 2015; Stiglitz 2008). This is what many social workers, with broadly social democratic values, have been wishing for, but instead of a strong collectivist alternative, we are seeing the rise of forms of right-wing populism and neo-fascism (Goodhart 2017; Roth 2016). Traditional social democracy, it appears, is too encumbered with neoliberal trappings to be a viable vision for an electorate calling for change, as a result of the compromises social democrats have made with the dictates of 'the market'. The Trump election in particular has rendered much previous writing on politics, sociology, the environment and the future of democracy largely irrelevant. And it has done the same for social work. We are clearly at a pivotal point in human history, with multiple threats to the world we have come to define as 'normal': the uncertainty of Trump, the further uncertainty of Brexit, economic instability and possibly serious collapse, the increase in racism and xenophobia, the threat of climate change, looming food crises caused by the over-fishing of the oceans and the desertification of land, an increased likelihood of major global conflict, and the crisis in democracy and governance as our political leaders are clearly unable to deal effectively with the multiple threats and crises that face us all. In such a world human rights based social work becomes both more challenging and at the same time more important.