Summary
Contents
Subject index
This introductory text sets out seven important theoretical perspectives through which to make sense of historical and contemporary changes in, and struggles around, social welfare systems and provisions. Through examination of liberalism, Marxism, neo-liberalism, post-structuralism, political economy, political ecology, and postmodernism, the authors provide an introduction to the theoretical frameworks within which the sociological perspectives on welfare have been formulated. At the same time they highlight some of the social and political contexts within which the concepts, categories, and logics of these theories are situated. They also examine core issues such as the point of theory in the analysis of welfare and present definitions of theory, social welfare, the welfare state, and the state. The book shows how social theories construct the relationships between state, society, economy, culture, environment, production, consumption, and other forms of individual and collective action and experience. It is specifically written for social policy studentsùto lay the foundation of knowledge that will inform every facet of their undergraduate work.
Enlightenment and Progress
Preface
The possibilities of Enlightenment were understood in different ways by different thinkers. A preoccupation with power and its foundations, what rights individuals could properly lay claim to, and what form of political organisation could guarantee individual rights forms the substance of intense philosophical disputes across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A major division existed between philosophers associated with the Scottish Enlightenment, such as Locke, whose works provide an important inspiration for liberalism, and those of the French Enlightenment, such as Rousseau, who provide many of the foundations of socialist and Marxist theory. Against Locke's view that free will characterises human activity – that the primary purpose of this activity is labour, and that its protection through laws enabling individual freedom ...
- Loading...