COVID-19 response – lessons learned: challenging the neoliberal TINA discourse through social work education

ABSTRACT

Social work academic literature has consistently documented the detrimental effects of the neoliberal phase of capitalism on society and has issued calls against it. This paper supports and furthers these claims. It is informed by a critical pedagogy and Gramscian lens and argues that the COVID-19 public health emergency context provides some lessons which can be used to discredit the ‘There is No Alternative’ (TINA) neoliberal discourse. More specifically, it argues that the pandemic offers an updated critique of the TINA discourse, as it revealed that there is an alternative to public spending cuts, that market-based solutions are irrelevant for the well-being of society, and that the social value of life-sustaining activities such as caring, is important for the social reproduction of society. This paper is a call for action to all social work educators who espouse the progressive values of our profession, to utilize these lessons learned and challenge neoliberalism. Relevant examples towards this aim are offered.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work education in a COVID-19 context
• critical social work
• critical pedagogy
• social work action
• contesting TINA (there is no alternative)
• contesting neoliberalism
• Gramsci
• global agenda of social work and social development
• calls for social transformation

Introduction

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) global public health emergency, similarly to other extreme events (Pentaraki, 2013a), reinforces existing structural inequalities, such as those based on class, race and gender, both within countries (Bryant et al., 2020; Choonara & Prasad, 2020; Green et al., 2021; Humber, 2020; Oxfam, 2021; Pentaraki & Speake, 2020) and between countries (FAO [Food and Agricultural Organization of UN-(FAO)], 2020; UN [United Nations], 2020; Oxfam, 2021). However, this paper argues that it also presents an opportunity (Blakeley, 2020; Lavalette et al., 2020) to further arguments against the present neoliberal capitalist socio-economic model, which is primarily responsible for these inequalities (Harvey, 2005; Martinez, 2020). Furthering arguments against the neoliberal ideology that sustains the present neoliberal capitalist system is necessary, if we want to transition to a better system. Piketty (2020), argues that shocks such as pandemics and wars can drive transitions to better systems, as they offer the opportunity to challenge the ideologies that sustain them. Almost 100 years ago, Gramsci,¹ in the Prison Notebooks (Gramsci, 1971), discussed the necessity of an ideological struggle and the possibilities of social change in order to transition to a better system. Gramsci (1971), highlighted the importance of challenging the hegemony of the ruling class by refuting their ideas which have been widely accepted as common sense (Pentaraki, 2019b) and, as such, sustain the existing power relations. The COVID-19 public health emergency response provides a context from which to draw some lessons to discredit the neoliberal capitalist ideas which sustain the existing power relations. More specifically, they offer the opportunity to delegitimize the ‘There is No Alternative’ (TINA) to the neoliberal agenda discourse and these lessons can become part of the social work curriculum. The COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to challenge the neoliberal common sense (Hall & O’Shea, 2013).

Before the paper explores the lessons learned and their relevance for the social work profession, it will start by briefly outlining the social work profession’s calls for transitioning to another, better system. It will then briefly outline the TINA discourse as neoliberal common sense; a discourse which is widely accepted and is partly responsible for the dominance of the neoliberal agenda (Pentaraki, 2013b, 2019b), and then outline some of the ways social work educators can engage with the lessons learned to advance calls for social transformation.

Calls for social transformation and critical pedagogy

The call for social transformation to another system is a core element of the 2020–2030 Global Agenda of Social Work and Social Development (SWSD) (IASSW, ICSW, IFSW, 2020), which compels social workers in advancing new platforms for new social agreements to emerge. ‘This would include the development of new social agreements between governments and the populations they serve, that facilitate universal rights, opportunities, freedom and sustainable well-being for all people nationally and globally’ (IASSW, ICSW, IFSW, 2020, p. 1). The current social agreements we have in place are not fit to advance the social well-being of all people and thus fulfil the aspirational mandate of the global definition of social work. Inequality is increasing (Oxfam, 2021), alongside social problems that undermine people’s well-being (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). As various scholars have argued, including the Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz (2015), inequality has been a political and economic choice. Attaining a society with egalitarian outcomes requires different choices and agreements between governments and the populations they serve.

The need for different social agreements has been highlighted by social work scholars of the critical tradition of the social work profession (for example, see: Dlamini & Sewpaul, 2015; Featherstone, 2011; Harris, 2014; Hyslop, 2016; Marthinsen et al., 2021; Pastor Seller et al., 2019; Pentaraki, 2015, 2017, 2019; Tang & Peters, 2006). They have identified the negative impact of the current neoliberal capitalist system on service users, social workers, the welfare state, and society in general. This system has been documented as causing negative consequences in the lives of the majority of people worldwide (Oxfam, 2021; Piketty, 2020). Thus, there are calls for the transition to another, more caring, society (Pentaraki, 2013a).

Within this context, this paper becomes a relevant initiative. It maintains that the Coronavirus crisis provides an opportunity to further calls against the current neoliberal socio-economic and political agreements, by drawing important lessons which discredit them, and as such, calls for progressive change for new social agreements to be advanced. Even though these lessons are drawn from the UK, they have international relevance, to various degrees of course, due to the worldwide dominance of the neoliberal capitalist agenda² (Harvey, 2005).

In order for this to be achieved, there is a need to challenge the ideologies that sustain the current neoliberal agreements. Within this context, the author joins the calls of other social work educators to argue for a social work curriculum designed to equip students with the knowledge and critical skills needed to analyze, challenge and resist neoliberalism (Fenton, 2018; Martínez Herrero & Charnley, 2021; Morley & Dunstan, 2013, amongst others) and, as such, advance calls for social transformation. Thus, this author’s approach is rooted within the tradition of critical pedagogy (CP), which argues that education is a liberatory process. This is firmly supported by the global definition of social work, as approved by the IFSW General Meeting and the IASSW General Assembly in July 2014, which states that ‘[…] social change […] the empowerment and liberation of people. Principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities are central to social work. Underpinned by theories […], social work engages people and structures to address life challenges and enhance wellbeing’ (IFSW & IASSW, 2014).

This might be easier in some countries than others, depending on national requirements. For example, in England there have been attempts by various ministers responsible for state social work to remove social work away from its social justice commitment (Jones, 1996). These attempts aim to deter social work students and professionals from developing a critical ability and social action, by denying them the tools needed to challenge neoliberal capitalism and the ideological processes that sustain it (Pentaraki, 2019c).

Even though traditionally social work education has been accused of being individualistic, by ignoring the wider socio-economic and political conditions (Carey, 2021; Fenton, 2021; Morley et al., 2020; Wehbi & Turcotte, 2007), various ministers have attempted to amplify this focus even more. However, this paper argues for another social work education (Fenton, 2021; Morley et al., 2020). This is especially needed now for social work students as social work research has indicated there are social work students (Fenton, 2018) and professionals (Pentaraki, 2019b) who have uncritically accepted neoliberal narratives. Thus, this paper argues for a social work education in the service of the transformative ideals of the profession, informed by the critical pedagogies of social work (Morley et al., 2020). Critical pedagogies in social work are informed ‘from a variety of radical theories whose progressive elements might be useful in both challenging neoliberalism on many fronts while resurrecting a militant democratic socialism that provides the basis for imagining a life beyond “the dream world” of capitalism’ (Morley et al., 2020, p. xxi). Social work education, informed by the tradition of critical pedagogy, aims for social work graduates to become ‘big-picture practitioners’ (Noble et al., 2016, p. 149), to develop a critical analysis of society, its systems of oppression and privilege and the ideas that sustain them and ‘practices to facilitate progressive social change’ (Morley et al., 2020, p. 8).

Dubois, one of the founding fathers of western sociology and critical pedagogy, has argued that education is a path of freedom for marginalized people. In his article ‘Education and Work’, DuBois (1932) argued for an education with a community uplift mission. Within this framework, social work education needs to be in the service of the community; to challenge any form of oppression, such as neoliberal ideas which, similarly to racist and other oppressive ideas, are designed to reinforce exploitative power relations. Furthermore Freire (1970), another important scholar of critical pedagogy, in his book ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’, argued that everyone has knowledge of their own oppressive circumstances. What they might need though, is an education which gives them the words to articulate this knowledge or facilitate the process, to develop a more critical awareness of their oppressive conditions. Similarly, bell hooks (1994) in ‘Teaching to Transgress’, discusses feminist anti-racist teaching principles that can be used by teachers for the liberation and education of students, once they realize their oppressive conditions. Furthermore, Mills (1959, p. 226), argued that ‘the human meaning of public issues must be revealed by relating them to personal troubles—and to the problems of the individual life’. Hence, one of the main elements of the critical pedagogy is associated with the ability of the educator to connect the personal with the political and this can be achieved by drawing from widely known experiences, amplified under COVID-19, which are well-known to the students and to the wider community.

TINA discourse—a neoliberal common sense discourse

Before the paper explores the lessons learned and their relevance for the social work profession, it briefly outlines the TINA discourse; a Gramscian common sense discourse, which is widely accepted and is partly responsible for the dominance of the neoliberal agenda (Hall & O’Shea, 2013; Pentaraki, 2013b, 2019b). TINA: ‘There is No Alternative’ was a phrase first coined by Thatcher, the Conservative British Prime Minister in the 1980s. This ideological declaration is the culmination of a neoliberal agenda which started being developed in the early twentieth century (Harvey, 2005). Thatcher in the UK and Reagan in the USA, government leaders in the 1980s, are typically associated with the political ascendancy of the neoliberal agenda in the Global North. Pinochet, the military dictator in Chile from 1973 to 1990, is associated with its imposition in the Global South (Harvey, 2005). The logic of this agenda is based on the economic arguments advanced by Hayek and Friedman which argue that ‘the invisible hand’ of the market will restructure society for social and personal well-being to be achieved (Finlayson et al., 2005). It is grounded in a number of unfounded assumptions (Harvey, 2005), that once the market prevails everyone will benefit and have the place in society they deserve.

In Gramscian terms, these unfounded assumptions which are taken for granted, can be explained as ruling class attempts to enforce its hegemony by presenting its ideas as common sense (Gramsci, 1971). According to Gramsci (1971), common sense refers to the adoption of the ruling elite’s beliefs by the working class uncritically as self-evident. This adoption explains why the working-class consents to the agenda of the elite. Once the ruling class ideas are accepted uncritically as common sense, the hegemony of the ruling class is achieved.

This is partly how the ruling class establishes and maintains its control, through its ideas being taken for granted. Based on these taken for granted assumptions of the TINA discourse which are accepted as common sense, many governments across the world have privatized social and other public services, dismantled the welfare state, and cut taxes and public spending in general; all under the illusionary promise of a better society. However, this TINA discourse has been part of a class project constructed by the economic and political elite, in order to justify the appropriation of resources from the many to the few, leading to the unprecedented concentration of resources in the hands of the few (Harvey, 2005; Pentaraki, 2019b). This unequal concentration of resources has been documented as causing social problems (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009) that service users are experiencing, in addition to the understaffing and underfunding faced by social workers (Pentaraki, 2019a, 2019b).

According to Gramsci (1971), ruling class ideas and beliefs which sustain the exploitative power relations of the ruling elite are not set in stone. They are open to ideological contestation. Gramsci (1971), argued for a political and ideological struggle for hegemony through a war of position. Gramsci called for ‘a war of position’, in which aggrieved populations seek to undermine the legitimacy of dominant ideology, rather than just a ‘war of maneuver’ aimed at seizing state power. To counter the hegemony of ruling historical blocs, Gramsci sought to ‘fashion oppositional coalitions capable of struggling for a world without exploitation and hierarchy’ (Lipsitz, 1988, p. 146). Social work educators can take part in these contestations (Fenton, 2018; Garrett, 2009; Hatton, 2015; Pentaraki, 2019b; Price & Simpson, 2007; Singh & Cowden, 2009).

Having outlined the TINA discourse as Gramscian neoliberal common sense and some of its main assumptions, three of the lessons learned under COVID-19 conditions which discredit these assumptions and which can play an important role in the ideological struggle or else in the Gramscian war of position are now presented.

Lessons learned under COVID-19 conditions

The first lesson learned, which is of importance to social workers and social care workers in underfunded and understaffed services (Abramovitz & Zelnick, 2010), is that when there is political will there is money. Since the 1980s, neoliberal informed governments following a fiscally conservative policy have blocked demands for increased welfare spending and the improvement of public services by claiming that there is no money available. Furthermore, they have argued that there is no alternative other than to impose public spending cuts (Harvey, 2005; Kelton, 2020). ‘There’s no magic money tree’ said the British Prime Minister Teresa May, when she was confronted by a nurse who had seen her wages deteriorate and had not seen a rise for eight years (Dearden, 2017). This reference was used to justify social spending cuts and other related neoliberal austerity measures. In Britain, as well as across the world, states spent to address the coronavirus pandemic. Even conservative British newspapers, such as the Daily Telegraph, championed the current British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, ‘to embrace socialism immediately’ in order to save the market (Evans-Pritchard, 2020). Within the COVID-19 context, Johnson contradicted his Conservative prime minister predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, in recognizing that ‘there really is such a thing as society’ (Šumonja, 2021). The spending also revealed that that the ‘magic money tree’ exists. This spending confirms the argument made by proponents of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), that governments of sovereign states with their own currencies can create and spend money for the public good (Kelton, 2020). According to MMT, the existence of public debt is not important as such governments can issue government bonds with which to finance public expenditure, without the fear of becoming insolvent. Unlike households or companies, they can keep creating money for the public good (Kelton, 2020). Furthermore, and more importantly, MMT creates possibilities for using tax to achieve social objectives, such as redistributing income and wealth, in order to mitigate wealth inequality (Baker & Murphy, 2020). Thus, there is an alternative, as the public spending cuts have been part of the neoliberal ideological agenda, rather than evidence informed. This is an important lesson around which the social work profession can mobilize and demand a well-funded welfare state.

The second lesson learned, is that the ‘invisible hand of the market’ cannot ensure the well-being of society and that the market does not know best. A number of narratives, presenting markets as the only effective and efficient way for the organization of society, dominate. However, these have been discredited as several governments have had to intervene to ensure the continuous functioning of society, due to the market/private sector being unable to ensure people’s well-being. Nationalizing health care and transportation services, rent control, suspension of evictions, and provision of basic income (Prefeitura Belo Horizonte, 2020) are some of the policies implemented by various governments to tackle the crisis. These actions further discredit the neoliberal narrative of the need for minimum state intervention (Saad-Filho, 2020). This is another argument which should inform the community organizing efforts of the social work profession. If governments could develop social policies reflecting social solidarity during this crisis, then why not at other times.

A further discrediting of the ‘market knows best’ narrative emerges from the adult social care services, an area where the logic of the market has been extended (Lymbery & Postle, 2015). It has become evident that the market logic which has resulted to the commodification of these services does not ensure the well-being of society, but rather places residents at higher risk of abuse and death. For example, in the UK, the majority of care beds (83%) are provided by the for-profit adult social care sector (Pollock et al., 2020). This sector is characterized by low pay, zero-hour contracts, underfunding and understaffing, with 120,000 workers and agency staff who commonly move from care home to care home (Pollock et al., 2020). UK official estimates document that one third of the COVID-19 deaths have happened in care homes (Booth & Duncan, 2020). Similarly, in Ontario, Canada, the high number of resident deaths is associated with the for-profit status of residential homes (Stall et al., 2020).

Commodified adult social care services, the result of the ‘market knows best’ neoliberal assumption, places people more at risk of death. This emerging evidence that ‘the market does not know best’ is a lesson that the social work profession can utilize to lobby for well-funded public social services, organized around the needs of the people rather than the logic of the market.

The third lesson learned is the importance of care work. COVID-19 has highlighted that the health and survival of society is dependent on the provision of care and the structures providing it. It has illuminated that people are interconnected and interdependent with each other (The Care Collective, 2020) and that a society of self-interested individuals is not viable. It has highlighted that care is the essential work needed for the survival of society. Care (both formal and informal and largely unpaid or low-paid) is provided, mostly by women, at home, in hospitals and care homes, by social services and in the community by mutual aid groups (Spade, 2020). Care, which is mostly feminized and racialized, has been largely marginalized and undervalued (Power, 2020; Sahraoui, 2019) within a neoliberal context. However, COVID-19 made clear that it is this work which is essential for the functioning of society. In many countries, such as Canada and the UK, social workers have been classified as essential/key workers. This should lead social workers to join forces with other workers who provide care and other essential work important for the social reproduction of society, to build wide coalitions with other progressive forces within and across countries to mobilize and demand their work to be valued both socially and economically. Furthermore, they should demand a society organized around care and other life-sustaining activities (Bhattacharya et al., 2020).

Discussion: challenging the TINA discourse

COVID-19 provides an opportunity for the social work profession to advance arguments against neoliberalism through these three lessons learned. These lessons discredit the neoliberal common sense constituting the ‘There is No Alternative’ (TINA) discourse of previous decades. As already mentioned, Gramscian common sense refers to the ‘uncritical and partly unconscious way in which people perceive the world’ (Simon, 2015, p. 23). For Gramsci (1971), when the ideas of the ruling class are self-evident hegemony has been achieved. However, these self-evident ideas—this self-evident common sense becomes a site of ideological contestation (Pentaraki, 2019b). As such, the hegemony of the ruling elite is not permanent as it can be reconstructed. Social work education /social work educators can play a role towards the ideological contestation of the TINA discourse (i.e. the neoliberal common sense), through the curriculum, wider scholarly ideological debates, and community activism.

The pandemic response made clear that there is an alternative to public spending cuts. It highlighted that market-based solutions are irrelevant and, in some cases, dangerous for the well-being of society. It made clear that that a well-funded public sector should ensure the well-being of society. It also highlighted that the most important work for society’s functioning and well-being is care and other life-sustaining work, which allows it to socially reproduce itself (Bhattacharya, 2017). The lessons learned allow us to re-imagine a society beyond the logic of the market, a society which is built around the principle of care and solidarity (UN [United Nations], 2020), such as the principle of Ubuntu³ (Mayaka & Truell, 2021), a society that meets the needs of all and in which no one is left behind. For this transitioning to happen, a wide range of changes are needed, amongst them the challenging of the unfounded assumptions of neoliberal capitalism. Progressive proposals aiming to alter the social and political balance in favour of working people are needed. However, it is beyond the scope of this paper to provide a blue-print towards another society. Proposals towards a better society have been provided elsewhere (UN [United Nations], 2015; Oxfam, 2021). The UN Agenda 2030 (UN [United Nations], 2015), incorporating the Sustainable Development Goals, gives a glimpse for the transformation needed, a transformation that realizes the future we want for all and leaves no one behind. Similarly, the Global Definition of Social Work provides an aspirational context through which these can be pursued (IFSW & IASSW, 2014). This paper argues about discrediting the ideas that keep the current neoliberal socio-economic arrangements intact, in order to imagine an alternative, and work towards that alternative.

The discrediting of neoliberal ideas can happen through a transformative social work education curriculum which supports a politics of engagement (DuBois, 1932; Freire, 1970; hooks, 1989; Mills, 1959; Pentaraki, 2015). Practice learning modules in addition to sociology and social policy modules, can include these lessons aiming to shed light on the oppressive conditions resulting from neoliberal capitalism (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2014; Reisch & Staller, 2011; Simpson & Connor, 2011), and thus challenge the neoliberal TINA.

For example, the first lesson learned from the UK’s government response to the pandemic, is that there is an alternative to social spending cuts and that social spending cuts are a political choice, can be used by practice teachers. Social work students during their practice come into contact with overworked and stressed social workers. They themselves might experience the negative consequences of a neoliberal agenda on their practice workload. They might also experience economic difficulties (Baglow & Gair, 2019). Many will also have encountered the adverse impacts of COVID-19. Thus, starting from their own experiences (Freire, 1970; Mayo, 2015; Mills, 1959), they can develop an understanding that there is an alternative to the underfunded services in which they practice. In the same way that the government allocated resources to tackle COVID-19, resources can be mobilized to secure well-funded welfare services. Thus, there is an alternative to social spending cuts. MMT theory’s explanatory framework can inform this discussion, which also needs to include a related discussion about the importance of tax measures for redistributive purposes. According to the latest Oxfam report (2021), ‘The Inequality Virus’, there are resources, but these have become concentrated in the hands of the few. Since the start of the pandemic, the increase in the wealth of the 10 richest billionaires would be enough to prevent anyone worldwide from falling into poverty because of the virus, and to cover the cost of COVID-19 vaccine for all. This is evidence that inequality is a choice (Oxfam, 2021).

The second lesson which discredits the TINA neoliberal narrative about ‘the market knows best’, can be discussed both during field placement and policy modules. Students who are placed in adult care settings have experienced the negative effects of the commodification of care, which is underlined by ‘the market knows best’ neoliberal mantra. This offers a good case example by which to raise the awareness of students in terms of the negative effects of ‘the market knows best’. Adult care settings were the earliest social care settings to face the adverse effects of a pro-market ideological drive. In England, legislation (NHS & Community Care Act, 1990; Health & Social Care Act, 2012 (UK Government 2012); Care Act, 2014 (UK Government 2014).), imposed a market based agenda within social care by normalizing privatization, competition and rationing within social care (Glynos et al., 2015). In this setting, student social workers, along with qualified social workers, face restricted market-based social care for community-based older adults (Carey, 2021). They encounter the difficulties of ensuring well-funded care packages designed to support the needs of the majority of older adults holistically. There are 1.4 million elderly people who do not have the care they need for essential daily tasks like getting washed and dressed. Each day, 1,805 elderly people are developing an unmet need and are placed on long waiting lists for residential care homes placements or care packages (Age UK, 2019; Age Scotland, 2019). So, these students may have first-hand experience of the negative effects of a market-based agenda. Furthermore, they may be well-aware of the devastating high death toll caused in care homes in England due to COVID-19, resulting from their market-based agenda (Daly, 2020). Discussions around these can enhance an understanding that the present social care sector is more interested in enhancing the profit making of its private owners and shareholders, than in the well-being of people. Thus, this enhanced understanding can reinforce the critique of ‘the market knows best’ narrative. This narrative has enabled the privatization of the sector, which in turn was responsible for the unnecessary deaths. Adult social care should be organized around the needs of people, it needs to be nationalized and integrated with a well-funded National Health Service (NHS) (Daly, 2020).

The third lesson learned is the importance of care work and the need to value its importance. Care work, along with other social reproductive activities, keep society functioning. Social workers, nurses, social care workers kept society together during the pandemic; these jobs were included in the UK government’s essential workers list—yet they are amongst the lowest paid employees. For example, a newly qualified social worker and nurse in the UK earn £24,000 and £22,000 respectively per year, in comparison to the highest paid asset manager who takes home close to £31 million, i.e. about ‘1,400 times more’ (Oxfam, 2021, p. 16). Yet, an asset manager has not made any government’s ‘essential services’ list (Bhattacharya, 2020), even though the neoliberal capitalist economy considers their jobs as high skilled and high value producing. The coronavirus crisis made clear that this is not the case, since they were not essential for the functioning of society.

The importance of care work discredits a range of neoliberal narratives. Firstly, it discredits the neoliberal narrative that people are paid according to their contribution to society. The pandemic made clear that assets managers’ work is of no value to society. This may enhance students’ understanding that the neoliberal socio-economic model does not value care, even though the provision of care has kept society going. Furthermore, it may lead them to challenge the current neoliberal arrangements. Social reproduction workers; formal workers,⁴ such as teachers, social workers, carers, nurses, and informal workers, such as homemakers and parents (mostly mothers), generated value. Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) scholars (Bhattacharya, 2020; Stevano et al., 2021; Stevano, Mezzadri et al., 2021), argue that that the appreciation of devalued forms of work as essential, presents an opportunity to re-valorize socially reproductive work and to demand that it is placed at the centre of our social organization. This lesson can be incorporated in a variety of social work modules, such as practice, sociology, and social policy.

Furthermore, Simpson and Connor (2011) in ‘Social Policy for Social Welfare Professionals’, argue that the teaching of policy provides students with tools for understanding, analysis and engagement. They assert that a form of policy literacy needs to be developed by everyone, but especially by practitioners of social welfare. Within this framework this and all the lessons learned, can be utilized to enhance students’ abilities to challenge existing neoliberal policies and thus enhance policy literacy and create ‘big-picture practitioners’ (Noble et al., 2016, p. 149).

In addition to reflecting on these lessons and the possibilities for social change in their teaching and scholarship, social work educators should also actively engage with wider society in an ideological debate—a Gramscian war of position (Gramsci, 1971), to continue advocating for a caring society with well-funded public services; a society which puts at its centre the care and well-being of people. Furthermore, they should engage in progressive social activism (Gates et al., 2021) and create progressive alliances with groups which are adversely affected by neoliberalism (Gates et al., 2021; Mclaughlin et al., 2020). An example of this is the campaign of the Social Work Action Network of Scotland. This campaign, building on the lessons learned during COVID-19, advocates for the nationalization of the care, in order to protect the integrity of a just and fair social care system. (SWAN, 2021). Unions, such as UNISON, are collaborating in this campaign and producing a response to the National Care Service consultation. This is an example of active policy engagement (Simpson & Connor, 2011), which aims to put forward new social agreements based on the lessons learned.

Along with social work educators, the Professional Associations of Social Work can play an important role in advancing the lessons learned from COVID-19 in wider public debates. Social work educators and members of the Professional Social Work Associations need to constantly engage in ideological struggles (Pentaraki, 2013b, 2015) to challenge the unfounded neoliberal assumptions of the TINA discourse. This TINA discourse is part of the ideology which sustain the current oppressive neoliberal policies (Harvey, 2005; Piketty, 2020) which cause social harm, not only to the social work profession, but also to the majority of people worldwide. Social workers need to be the ‘permanent persuaders’ and ‘organizers’ of emancipatory ideas (Gramsci, 1971) such as those that emerge from the lessons learned both within and outside educational and professional spaces, to advance the social justice ideals of the profession as entailed in the Global Definition of Social Work (Amadasun, 2020; Fenton, 2016; Hatton, 2015; Pentaraki, 2013b, 2017, 2019a). This requires a renewed activist orientation of the social work profession (Pentaraki, 2013b). It needs a profession which does not shy away from its political responsibility (Gray & Webb, 2013; Guidi, 2020; Pentaraki, 2013b). It also necessitates a profession that is willing to engage in community organizing (Karagkounis, 2021; Pentaraki, 2015), to advance its social justice and social change aspirations. Optimistic glimpses in this direction have been the webinars organized by the International Federation of Social Workers and the Social Work Action Network (Lavalette et al., 2020), to explore ways forward for the profession both during and in a post COVID-19 setting. It is up to social workers individually and collectively to ensure that these social justice aspirations are met through social work education, practice, and social activism.

A cautionary note

Even though the COVID-19 crisis has presented evidence that the neoliberal capitalist system and its ideology are not fit to promote the well-being of people, ‘it would be a mistake to conclude that the neoliberal era is over just on account of the ‘emergency Keynesianism’ to which governments around the world resorted (Šumonja, 2021, p. 216). Similarly, calls for the dismantling of the neoliberal ideas that sustain neoliberal capitalism were issued during the last financial crisis . However, neoliberal informed governments managed to impose a TINA framing to the problems created by the neoliberal capitalist system. The capitalist crisis was reformulated into a crisis of public finances and hence the blame was shifted away from the system that caused it. This framing, in turn, led to the entrenchment of neoliberalism through social spending cuts and deregulation of the labour sector, amongst other policies which resulted in the increase of inequalities and the overall deterioration of the socio-economic conditions (Pentaraki, 2017, 2019a). Thus, similar attempts by neoliberal governments are to be expected. Naomi Klein in her book ‘The Shock Doctrine’ (2007), examined historical examples in which large-scale societal or institutional crises are exploited to further the economic interests of the capitalist elite. She argued that the shock and social disorientation caused by the crisis provides a context for Disaster Capitalism (Pentaraki, 2013a). The shock caused by the financial crisis reinforced neoliberalism and furthered existing inequalities (Mirowski, 2013), despite the opportunity it offered to discredit more widely the neoliberal orthodoxies that lead to it. The shock and the devastation that the coronavirus pandemic has caused may similarly be used to further inequalities.

Hence, the social work profession needs to be vigilant to fend off these attempts and be alert so that conditions of inequality are not furthered by a discredited neoliberal capitalist system. Social workers should be able to ask critical questions that interrogate the present system in order to fulfil the aspirations of the global definition of social work of enhancing the well-being of everyone (IFSW & IASSW, 2014). Possible questions may include who gains and who loses, are inequalities ameliorated or reinforced, and for whom?

As advocated in this paper, critical social work education is a ‘practice of hope and freedom [… which …] offers pathways to build more hopeful and just futures’ (Morley et al., 2020, p. 12). According to bell hooks (1994), even when injustices continue, critical pedagogy provides a sense of hope and inspires the continued working towards social justice.

Conclusion

This paper argued that the COVID-19 context provides updated examples that expose the fallacies of the neoliberal discourse. These examples are based in experiences which are widely known by many people. Exploring these examples, which resonate with many people’s experiences, through a critical pedagogy lens can be the basis for a renewed critique of the taken-for-granted assumptions of the TINA discourse, which form the ideology that sustains the current socio-economic system. Students might be well-aware of the oppressive conditions these reflect (Freire, 1970), but social work educators should give space to explore these examples both in, and outside, the classroom so a critique of neoliberalism can be articulated within a mission of community uplift (DuBois, 1932).

This paper is a call for action to all social work educators who espouse the progressive values of our profession, to discuss lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. It argued that the COVID-19 context provides possibilities for a renewed critical understanding and analysis of the neoliberal model of society and its negative effects in order to present possibilities for social change.

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Additional information

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Notes on contributors

Maria Pentaraki

Maria Pentaraki, M.S.W., Ph.D., is currently a Lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland. Before that she held academic posts in England and in Greece where she was also the Head of one of the largest social work departments. Her research interests focus on the politics of austerity and gender-based violence.

Notes

1. Footnotes

1 For an introduction to Gramsci’s politics see Garrett (2009). Also, see, amongst others, (Fenton, 2018; Garrett, 2009; Hatton, 2015; Pentaraki, 2013b, 2019b; Price & Simpson, 2007; Singh & Cowden, 2009) for examples of how Gramsci has informed social work literature.

2. This agenda, when it intersects with the legacy of colonialism such as in the countries of the Global South, produces even greater inequalities.

3. Ubuntu is an African world-view, which has been incorporated in the 2020–2030 Global Agenda of SWSD (IASSW, ICSW, IFSW, 2020), and is based on life values such as justice, community, caring, collectiveness, and social change (Mayaka & Truell, 2021).

4. Additional essential workers, such as supermarket workers, farm workers etc., need to continue to be regarded as such rather than as unskilled workers. Any collective attempt which puts forward material and political claims such as social protection, pay rises, parental leave, pensions, extended sick leave and indefinite citizenship rights for migrants needs to include them too (Bhattacharya, 2020).