Social Work Commons^™

Observations On An Emerging Profession, Lincoln J. Fry, Jon Miller

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study examines the ranking that rehabilitation counselors received from their colleagues and clients in an alcoholism rehabilitation organization. The findings suggest that organizational power was the major determinant of the favorable ranking rehabilitation counseling received from colleaguest legitimacy appeared to accrue from power, not the reverse. Occupational visibility appeared to account for client ranking while knowledge that a powerless client group was controlled by others was found to be an important dimension of rehabilitation counselor standing with clients. One implication of the study is that the immediate social environments of occupations provide a meaningful place to begin to document …

A Disarmed World: Problems In Imaging The Future, Elise Boulding

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

One of the major handicaps to scholars, activists and would-be policy makers associated with the post-World War II peace research and peace action movements has been the inability to construct coherent and believable images of a post military industrial United States society. Even at the height of the economics of disarmament studies in the 1960s the most that economists could demonstrate was that disarmament could take place without severe economic dislocations, and that resources released from arms could be used for improving the global standard of living. The new peace research movement was also producing books in the sixties showing …

Government Spending And Welfare Employment, Martin D. Lowenthal

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

One of the persistent issues which welfare policy makers and analysts confront in western industrial nations, particularly in the United States, is the appropriate relationship between public assistance payments and employment. There is a great deal of debate over whether welfare recipients should work or be required to take jobs and whether the government should emphasize training or placement services or create jobs directly. Relatively little concern and attention have been given to the 'roblem of the number of jobs that are actually available in the private sector for recipients who want to work. Although the federal government will plan …

Is Criminology A Policy Science, Robert F. Meier, Gilbert Geis

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The question posed in the title is discussed in view of selected evidence from the criminological literature. Criminology's status as a policy science, based largely on the ability of the discipline to present coherent, empirically-based recommendations for the reduction of crime, is evaluated. The review leads to disappointing conclusions with respect to the usefulness to policymakers of the present knowledge base in criminology.

A Moment Of Truth In The Warfare-Welfare Debate: The Transfer Amendment, Elizabeth Holtzman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The controversy over the budget is much more than a debate about how much should be spent in 1977 on the military, or social programs. It is more than a struggle between two branches of the federal government--the legislative and the executive-- over which body should determine the national priorities. Ultimately questions are raised about the viability of the democratic planning process in the warfare/welfare state, and how the people--the governed--can be adequately represented in the process. All of these issues are touched on explicitly or implicitly by Congresswoman Holtzman in the debate (although, to be sure, she was most …

Forward To Our Origins: Social Work Skills And Political Action In The Current Crisis, Bertram A. Weinert

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The last decade of the 19th century and the years prior to World War I was an exciting and fruitful period in United States history. It was a time of unrest, but characterized by vigorous discontent, not cynicism or despair. There was an aggressive optimism that fostered confidence in social action, even to the belief that poverty could be abolished. The failure to achieve that goal remains our burden today, but to have begun the struggle then was a significant step. It was the developing profession of social work that initiated that battle against poverty.

Influencing Welfare/Warfare Priorities Through The New Budgetary Process, Ann Blalock

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

In the previous article, Weinert challenged social workers, and other professionals in the area of social welfare, to commit themselves to greater collective political action in the interest of substantial social change. He suggested that there are many options for movement in that direction. This article briefly discusses one incremental option within the established political system, intervention within the new Congressional budgetary process. This is not an insignificant strategy. Its purpose is to influence the way the national budget is constructed. The budget incorporates to an important degree the society's prevailing definition of its priorities. Furthermore, future policy alternatives are …

Third World Women, World Population Growth: A Case Of Blaming The Victim, Elizabeth W. Moen

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper examines the provisions of the 1974 United Nations World Population Conference pertaining to the status of women, wherein it is assumed that if the status of women is improved and they are educated and employed, fertility will decline. It is concluded that these assumptions do not have very sound theoretical or empirical bases, and that the possibility and probability of implementation in the near future is slim. It is hypothesized that the Conference World Plan of Action will do little to raise the status of women or reduce population growth because it is a product of sexual politics.

The Interests Of Children And The Interests Of The State: Rethinking The Conflict Between Child Welfare Policy And Foster Care Practice , A. Pare, J. Torczyner

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The social welfare literature -- whether embodied in the ideology of the profession, claimed in its social policy, substantiated through empirical research, or espoused in practice -- suggests that children should not be removed from their natural hones as a solution to economic woes or to the unavailability of social support services. This apparent convergence of ideology, policy and practice -- buttressed by social values which recognize the importance of family life -- would suggest that few children, if any, would enter foster care because of inadequate income or the absence of social services. Yet, in 1977, between one quarter …

A Classification Scheme For Medical Expenditures, James Veney, Arnold Kaluzny

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Medical care represents a significant portion of society's response to problems affecting social welfare. While the problems surrounding medical care are complex, a major part of these problems can be attributed to the fact that medical care expenditures are viewed indiscriminately without regard for the nature of the expenditures themselves. This paper presents a framework to differentiate various types of medical care expenditures. The paper argues that medical care expenditures can be classified as either instrumental-consummatory or as external-internal relative to the medical care system. The consequences of this classification and some conclusions which may be drawn from it are …

Community Control Of Urban Schools - Lessons From The Suburban Experience, David W. O'Shea

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Community control of inner-city schools first was proposed by parents in the Harlem section of New York City in 1966. The proposal aimed at improving the quality of public schools serving low income minority youngsters by providing for school accountability to parental representatives. In practice, the two cities that have tried to provide some measure of community control - New York City and Detroit - have utilized for this purpose decentralized sub-districts based upon the suburban school district model rather than upon the original school staff accountability model. It is argued here that while suburban districts do facilitate community control, …

Eighteen Leading Social Critics Comment: What Is The Real Threat To World Peace And Social Security?, Kenneth A. Kirkpatrick, Lawrence K. Northwood

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

What is the real threat to world peace and social security? Is it the prevalent ideology of violence, aggressive nationalism, and militarism? Or is it the maldistribution of resources, technology, and social welfare benefits? How much of itsnational budget must the U.S. allocate to military expenditures? How can the national budget priorities be changed so there is a more realistic funding of social programs? Do we face as great a threat of nuclear annihilation in the '70's and the '80's as we did in the early '60's?

These are some of the questions the editors asked of 96 "experts" on …

A Comparison Of Defense And Welfare Spending In The United States And The United Kingdom, 1946-1976, James L. Clayton

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

One of the most important and absorbing questions of our time is whether governments should extend or retrench their efforts toward assisting people who do not seem to be able to make it on their own. Those who believe that governments should expand their programs to help the needy argue that a compassionate and affluent society has both the ability and the responsibility to do so; those who believe that governments have already pushed too far and too fast argue that the advance of the welfare state must be halted. Closely related to this basic disagreement is the question whether …

New York City And The Economic Crisis, Joseph Harris

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The crisis of New York City and the crises affecting many hundreds of other cities, counties, school districts, and other local and state governments are not accidents. They are a direct result of the neglect that social welfare receives at the hands of a government interested only in furthering the profits and position of the monopolies. Some people call the U.S. government a "warfare/welfare" state. I prefer to call it a state dominated by the giant corporations which control the economic and hence the political life of our nation. As long as federal policy continues to stress profits before people, …

The Warfare-Welfare Tradeoff: Health, Public Aid And Housing, Kathleen Peroff

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

It is a truism that resources devoted to defense are unavailable for nondefense purposes. Investment in defense takes place partly by reducing civilian spending on consumer and capital goods through tax rates that are higher than they would otherwise be and partly by reducing government spending on non-defense programs. The purpose of this paper is to test for the existence and magnitude of the latter tradeoff over the years 1929-1971 in the United States. In particular, the analysis concerns the tradeoff between defense and three social welfare policies: health, public aid and housing. In addition, the analysis examines whether these …

The Military Establishment And Social Welfare: Past, Present (And Future?), George W. Ayers

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

As we move toward the decade of the eighties we are becoming increasingly aware of the difficulties and realities of economics on a national level. More and more we, as a people, are faced with difficult choices concerning the services that we either demand of our government or which government deems it necessary to provide.

Although it is an oversimplication, our Constitution mandates that government always follow to some degree a "guns and (not or) butter" philosophy in its preamble provisions dealing with "common defense" and "general welfare." We have though paid dearly, in economic terms, for attempting to follow …

Human Security Or National Defense: The Question Of Conversion, Bruce Birchard

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

How can we convert the enormous human, financial and technological resources currently committed to military illusions of "national security" to programs and institutions which provide real human security? That is the central question of this paper.

Economic Conversion, Productive Efficiency And Social Welfare, Lloyd J. Dumas

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Traditional economic theory holds that there is a tradeoff between inflation and unemployment, and that accordingly price stability (i.e. 0% inflation) can only be achieved at the expense of increased unemployment, while full employment (corresponding to an unemployment rate of about 3%)' requires acceptance of an ongoing inflation. In 1960, the noted economists Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow published an analysis of annual data for the per d 1933-1958, from which they quantitatively estimated this tradeoff. It was their rough estimate that the elimination of inflation would require acceptance of a 5%-6% rate of unemployment while the achievement of full …

Anti-War Work By Discouragement Of Warriors: A Critique Of Anti-War Tactics Used Among Naval Personnel In The Vietnam War, Orabelle Connally

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

"Wars will end when men have ceased to fight" was a popular slogan of the anti-Vietnam War movement. It sounded quite practical and almost true on its face. However, we now have considerable information about wars and how people have refused to fight, and the relationship between them is not well described by this phrase. The specific military technology in use, the social organization of military authority, and the division of labor in producing war, all make a difference in the possibility of stopping a war by many refusals to fight. Campaigns emphasizing this tactic may even strengthen the organization …

Common Rooms And Functions Of The Warfare And Welfare State, David G. Gil

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Warfare and welfare are usually assumed to serve contradictory ends and to be rooted in antithetical values, institutions and dynamics. In this essay, I propose to challenge this notion and to advance, instead, the thesis that, in spite of significant differences between them, warfare and welfare serve, nevertheless, identical and complementary functions, and are both rooted in identical societal values, institutions and dynamics.

As with other phenomena which are considered to be "social problems," such as poverty, crime, unemployment, inflation, mental illness, etc., but which are merely by-products of the "normal" workings of certain social systems, warfare and welfare can …

Which Side Are You On?, Olga J. Northwood

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

A poem by Olga Northwood.

Social Welfare As A By-Product: The Effect Of Neo-Mercantilism , David Macarov

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries mercantilism was a predominant philosophy, theory, or guide to action in many western countries. Emphasis on measures leading to national wealth was pronounced--in some cases, almost exclusive--and the results for social welfare were marginal programs at best, and anti-welfare programs in some cases. In contradistinction to individual needs or aspirations, considerations of national wealth and power were paramount to the point that, in Britain at least, it seemed that here was "nothing to fight for, nothing to support, nothing to augment but.. .commerce." Whether national wealth was seen as leading to national iower, or …

The Individual And The Society: A Needed Reexamination Of Social Legislation And Policy, Ralph Segalman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The pervasive and often destructive effect of Ill-planned social policy (or the lack of effective social policy) is evident In terms of Increasing societal dysfunctionality and lowered quality of life for most people. Almost all social Interventions involve a variety of rights In conflict. Actions by the government to support or protect any one group must necessarily be at the expense of others. In the defense of the rights of individuals and groups the social objectives and social effects of such interventions have been generally Ignored. The problems of design of social policy derive from one-sided or parochial views of …

Sex Roles And Work Roles In Post-Industrial Society, Diane Barthel

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

It is argued that one of the reasons for the slow change in work and sex roles, despite policies designed to encourage such change, Is an inadequate understanding of the process of industrialization and Its Impact on women's status. This impact has been both increasingly to favor money as the sole criteria for status and to force a separation of the home and the workplace. Both of these factors have had an adverse impact on women's status which the growth of technology, expansion of education, and increased control over fertility have not been able to counteract. The limitations of current …

Problems Of Advocacy, Robert J. S. Ross

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The recent past has seen the erosion, and among some, the rejection, of social science neutrality and professional detachment. Among the typical expressions of a new professionalism is the underdog advocate, who wishes to lend his or her skills to the cause of less-than-equal groups in the society. The paper analyzes the problems confronting such advocates. The first is the discrepancy between career routes and success behavior on one hand, and the needs of poor people on the other. The second is the difficulty encountered by middle strata professionals in cross-class and cross-cultural communication, including their own ignorance of the …

Introduction: Warfare-Welfare As A Serious Social Problem For Study And Action, Lawrence K. Northwood

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Throughout the Journal reference will be made to "The Warfare/Welfare State." When the term is used by the editors it refers to activities and programs in the public (governmental) sector having to do with the growth, development, and interrelationship of two of the major institutional complexes of society, the military and the social welfare.

There are two major reasons for the term:

First of all, it signals the findings of current research, that nations having large military budgets also have large budgets for social welfare. Both welfare and warfare seemingly are necessary components of the modern industrial state.

Second, it …

The Welfare Effort Of The United States: Know Then Thyself, Leonard S. Miller, Marleen Clark

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

It seems obvious that the United States is not meeting the welfare needs of all its citizens in a adequate and equitable manner. But, it is neither clear what rearrangement of national priorities would result in more resources for welfare state usage, nor, given the resources at its disposal, is it clear what priorities and activities within the welfare state would lead to best reeting the needs of its users. Countrymen, what is to be done?

There are two basic strategies that can be followed. One focuses on securing larger budgets for the welfare state, the other focuses on -al-in …

Social Policy And War, Paul Adams

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

In view of the considerable disparity in the effect of World War II on national social policy, it is not surprising that British and American writers have viewed the relationship of war and social policy so differently. While these differences in part reflect the serious neglect of the importance of World War II for American social policy developments, they also reflect real variations of historical experience. I have attempted to develop a framework within which both national experiences can be understood. The framework takes account both of the nature of the war and the demands it makes upon the state …

The Political Economy Of Social Welfare: A Perspective, Christopher Rhoades Dykema

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Social welfare in the modern United States is an aspect of the legitimation and accumulation functions of government. It is legitimative in that it works to ameliorate the economy's disastrous human consequences. It fulfills the accumulation function by maintaining and enhancing conditions for the profitable conduct of commerce.1 These two basic functions can obviously be discharged in various ways and the social service worker's traditional commitment has co-existed with greater and lesser degrees of contentment with the nature of the existing society. Conscientious workers have always recognized that their role -- as mediators between individuals and organized society -- necessarily …

The Conservative Program For The Welfare-Warfare State: The Response To The Korean, Algerian, And Vietnamese Wars, Clarence Y.H. Lo

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper explains why the leaders of conservative political parties were so successful in the aftermith of limited wars. Conservative parties are those parties whose constituency is large and small business, managers, upper income professionals, and some white collar workers and farmers, exemplified by the Republican Party in the United States, the Gaullist Party in France, the Christian Democrats in Germany and Italy, and the Conservative Party in England. Conservative political leaders rose to power because they addressed the problems intensified by limited wars-- budget deficits, political stalemate, and inter-imperialist rivalries-- and, to some extent, enacted short term solutions--budget cuts, …