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Social Welfare And Society The Brutality Of Dissertation Or Thesis Complete

Social Welfare and Society The Brutality of Laissez Faire Capitalism and the Minimal Welfare State.

For Chapter 5, the main point is that the U.S. went through a period of rapid industrialization and urbanization in the Gilded Age of 1870-1900 that was downright brutal in its treatment of immigrant workers, blacks and Native Americans. In this era, which resembles out own in many ways, racism was endemic, political corruption was common, and inequality in wealth and incomes was extreme. All of this is very similar to what has been happening in the U.S. For the last thirty years, which could well be thought of as a Second Gilded Age. Of course, in the late-19th Century only a very "primitive welfare state" existed with "a minimal set of poorhouses and mental institutions," as well as public hospitals and charities funded by religious organizations (Jansson, 2009, p. 159). In the cities, corrupt political machines...

160).
Ethnic and immigrant communities in the big cities today still follow these same patterns, and official welfare state institutions are often linked to various religious and nonprofit groups associated with them. This era also left many unresolved problems in the South and rural areas, where blacks did not really receive the land, education and civic equality promised at the end of the Civil War, and the federal government acquiesced to the rule of the Ku Klan and former Confederates after 1876. In this case, the social needs were absolutely desperate, but the federal government did little to meet them. Even the Freedman's Bureau of 1865-72 received "virtually no funding" because of the reigning laissez faire ideology that opposed making the lower classes 'dependent' on the state (Jannson, p. 155). Just as disastrous was the Dawes Act of 1887, which attempted to abolish the Native American tribes and turn them into communities of individual land owners, although in the end white "speculators and crooks" acquired most of the native land and resources (Jansson, p. 134). Policies like these left long lasting legacies for minority groups in the United States that still…

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Progressivism was an urban, middle class reform movement of the late-19tha and early-20th Centuries that did attempt to deal with the social and economic problems of the United States in a limited way, almost always through regulations on the state and local levels. In many ways, the origins of social work as a modern profession and the welfare state can be traced back to this era, particularly to the work of Jane Addams at Hull house in Chicago and other urban reformers. Addams also supported national health insurance, public housing, old-age pensions and social security at the federal level, although these did not come about until the New Deal of the 1930s and Great Society of the 1960s (Jansson, p. 201). Early social workers like Addams soon came to understand that there was an "ethic of mutual assistance" in immigrant and ethnic communities that still exists today, and this was often the only form of welfare and social security that they had (Jansson, p. 169). This has changed little today with Latino and Asian communities in contemporary urban centers. In the post-1965 period, the U.S. again became the favorite destination for millions of refugees and economic migrants from poor countries, as it had been in the years 1880-1920. They again faced the same low wages and miserable housing and health care conditions that the earlier immigrants had, and also had no "right to safety net programs and protections that other working Americans receive" (Jansson, p. 200). Since the Progressive Era welfare state was more concerned with regulation of capitalism than social welfare and entitlement programs, present-day social workers "need to be familiar with the regulatory side of the American welfare state," especially regulations of wages, hours, workers' compensation, public health, food and drug safety and housing conditions, all of which had their origin in the Progressive Era (Jansson, p. 207).

REFERENCE

Jansson, B.S. (2009). The Reluctant Welfare State: Engaging History to Advance Social Work Practice in Contemporary Society, 6th Edition. Cengage Learning.
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