Societal transformations, capitalist crisis and the environment

a critical debate on social issues and Social Work

Abstract

Introduction: This article is situated in the current scenario of worsening living conditions, especially for the working class, due to the consequences of the capitalist climate crisis, seeking to answer the following question: what place does Social Work have in a context of worsening capitalism and ecological barbarity?

Objective: The objective of this article is to critically problematize the existing relationships between ecology, capitalist crisis and professional performance of Social Work.

Methodology: The methodology used, based on the method of dialectical historical materialism, starts from a bibliographical research, combining it with the critical analysis of historical documents, national legislation and the real movement of society.

Results: It can be seen that the theme, although it has been under construction for about three decades, still appears to be insufficiently radical from the point of view of what is recommended both by the Ethical Political Project of the profession and the Marxist method. The crucial importance of reflecting on the rupture of the metabolism between human beings and nature is highlighted, based on the process of primitive accumulation and the primary and secondary expropriations inherent to the capitalist mode of production and reproduction as a guide for professional activity.

Conclusion: The article ends by presenting some of the limits and possibilities for the insertion of professional activity in socio-occupational spaces directly or indirectly related to environmental and ecological issues in a context of permanent societal transformations caused by the also permanent crises of capitalism, which determine different expressions of the social issue.

KEYWORDS: capitalist accumulation; capitalist crisis; ecology; Social work.