Social inequality, modernization of society and “social work”

Abstract

The sociocultural climate in the Northern countries has become more impetuous and cold. In many places the social architecture has been disposed of. Are the Northern capitalist bourgeois countries moving away from a state order committed to the social welfare and moving towards an order that is exclusively bound to the rationality of the capitalist market? This study discusses this issue in three steps. Initially, it presents some points of diagnoses of the present social situation in Germany and contrasts them with selected data about Brazilian society with the purpose of better explaining them. In the second step, the author develops the thesis that the profound transformations in Western industrial countries are structurally similar to the transformation processes that are taking place in the “developing countries”. Finally, the study deals with the meaning and significance of those social transformations for social work. Key words: Social inequalities; Social welfare; Globalization; Social Work; Germany