11Transnational Approaches: Commons, Citizenship, Care

In our discussion so far on the relationship between social work and society, our argumentation has mainly been based on European societies and their welfare states. We have thus remained within our national shell and might ask what models we can take on and integrate into our system. First migration research and the related subject of transnational studies, and now social work with migrants, not to mention the social discussions and campaigns on the global Internet, have drawn our attention to the fact that connections have formed which go beyond national entities, transcending political, cultural and social boundaries – connections within which we need to find our place, as they affect our national social work.

Within this discourse, certain “transnational goods” have crystallized for social work; though the national societies have historically related to these differently, they have now become established as key transnational themes for social work in such a way that communication is possible on those subjects anywhere within social work. These are the recourse to shared commons which are essential to life, which can also be used by social work; social work’s integration into civil society, or citizenship, and the legitimizing issue of care, on which social work should be based with regard to both social ethics and society. These lines of discourse have formed in different ways. In Europe, they were triggered by the erosion of the welfare state’s safety net; in East Asian and South American threshold countries, they developed as a form of direct anti-capitalist resistance, a possible escape from powerlessness. They extend well beyond the field of discourse within social work, while at the same time magically attracting it, as these perspectives offer two hopes: firstly that of the “depillarization” and corresponding new legitimacy of the internal structure of social work, and secondly that of linking it in with a discourse that is not restricted to the welfare state, which could make social work “socially acceptable” once again, now on a transnational level. How successful that will be remains to be seen, but we believe these lines of discourse are a suitable way of extending social work reflection considerably. However, we do need to make sure that we do not adopt these transnationally shared terms unconsidered. Going down the transnational path within social work, e.g. in terms of human rights, can become hollow, remaining programmatic, if there is no analysis of the historical and social conditions in which it can be effective.

11.1Commons

According to the prevailing public opinion, there is no point trying to develop and push through an alternative to the predominant model of shareholder value capitalism. This forgets the fact that during the development of the modern industrial era there have been other economic aims than an absolute need to raise profits – necessarily, as it was the only way to achieve that sustainable social stability which, after all, the globalized economies rely upon. In corporate circles, too, groups have now formed which are proclaiming that the economy needs “rebedding”, as in economic roundedness and sustainability. In this context, two differently positioned models of the future, occupying two different discursive poles, are of interest to social work: the model of rebedding digital capitalism by means of socially compatible innovations and – on a local level – that of community economics.

The model of the socially compatible regulation of economic innovations (i.e. their socially regulated feasibility) is based on the idea that there is not necessarily any automatic urge towards globalization and economic innovation. Instead, it says, this originates in the dynamics of social disembedding and generalization resulting from the new profit model of digital capitalism, the shareholder value model of stock market capitalism. According to the model, the latter subscribes to a philosophy whereby

all companies want nothing but profit. And most economists, who see the arena of the free market as no more or less than the basic model for any society, support that view with their fiction of the solitary, egoist homo oeconomicus in a hostile environment. But this image is wrong. Firstly, even companies have to follow social rules; rules usually set up as collective reactions to corresponding good or bad social experiences. Rules on occupational health and safety, rules on environmental conservation, rules on credit supervision or rules on money laundering are not the product of a bureaucratic whim but represent advances across civilisation in how people deal with one another; taxes are a tribute legitimised by democratic agreement and paid in return for politics, which ensure that the infrastructure works and rules are followed. (Blomert, 2003, p. 179)

However, implementing models of this kind, going against the flow of globalization under stock market capitalism, requires a political willpower of a kind which is, for example, now beginning to form during the search for a new financial economy for Europe. Corresponding scenarios thus picture Europe as a strong political unit, while simultaneously assuming that the European countries, in particular, still feature the diversified social economic structures needed for sustainable, rounded economics (strong SMEs, municipalities run on a public budget). Blomert describes this as a model of the “Fourth Way”, which can lead to a European welfare state developing as a manifestation of the much-invoked “social Europe”.

In this new Europe, fusions and takeovers will be carefully checked in terms of their competitive prospects and the effect they will have on employment. Labour costs will have risen, and wages will even outstrip the inflation rate. Companies will pay high taxes unless an exception is made for purposes of safeguarding employment. High social security contributions and strict conditions with regard to occupational safety and health or product safety will then force such companies to operate within a strictly regulated environment. Due to high state investment, companies will only survive if they take part in state and regional tendering processes for infrastructural, educational and research projects. The companies will thus become members of an “interactive civic society”. [They] will lean once again towards long-term planning and long-lasting relationships with suppliers, and will once more embrace sustainable, long-term investment to achieve sustainable, long-term returns. Employees will then no longer be seen as a cost factor, but instead viewed as fixed assets, and companies will do their best to avoid any employment risks. (Blomert, 2003, pp. 164f.)

These forms of alternative economic activity have so far seemed to meet with little interest, as the situational advantages of cheap consumption hide the long-term disadvantages of a digital economy.

Alternatives of this kind to disembedded, digitalized shareholder management of the economy have been discussed for some time now using the term “stakeholder capitalism” (Kelly, Kelly & Gamble, 1997); above all they aim at re-embedding the economy in structures for creating social obligation, reorganizing labour relations, and ensuring that economic development programmes (and the corresponding updating of the welfare state) are long term. Going against mainstream development, corporate cultures which are “alternative” yet very much powerful are showing signs of new approaches, e.g. for structuring working hours, for linking working hours and family time, for gender justice and for additional social structures, such as for childcare. However, in view of the reality of the globalization process, which cannot, after all, be undone, this can no longer be regulated along the lines of the traditional national, cooperative welfare state.

One of the main aims of the stakeholder approach is [thus] for international institutions to develop, becoming stronger and, above all, democratised. Where they exist, these institutions are weak. One example is the European Union. In the case of the re-regulation of international capitalism, this could be given a function as a kind of pilot. The EU is an almost sealed-off macro-regional economic area. Currently the largest single market in the world, it is certainly attractive enough to competitors for there to be social and economic conditions for entry. (Dörre, 2001, p. 87)

This policy of re-regulation (see also Leibfried & Pierson, 1998) would provide

the chance to recombine the strengths of the old model [that of capitalism tamed by the welfare state – the author] in a new manner, especially its ability to unite wide social compromise with great economic flexibility. This would mean a chance to live in a transnational context again; it would be a programme of revival for unions and social associations, a gradual Europeanisation of long-term contractual relationships and welfare state associations. In brief, it would be a programme of a shift in priority within the European integration process, which could offer a social alternative to the ghost of a “disorganised capitalism”. (Dörre, 2001, pp. 87f.)

With the fiscal crisis becoming more obvious not only in national welfare states but also in municipalities, there are first signs of the pressure to privatize that this has triggered, also leading to the economization of fundamental necessities of life which were previously around as a matter of course: water, air, space, power. Plans aimed at combining the economy, sustainability and quality of life are not only also shaping general programmes, but now, additionally, specific social initiatives. Municipal policy groups are forming to fight for the collective maintenance of “common property” and develop local models of participation and security to protect people against industrial takeovers. In this context, social work is looking for and finding a link to the perspective of community economics, which, by reactivating the cooperative principle of the common good, offers solutions “for reorganising public and private affairs, and taking on tasks resulting from a change in social needs” (Elsen, 2004, p. 44). Unlike classic cooperatives, which developed from the solidarity of the milieu, today these are groups of citizens not only brought together by their shared interest in maintaining the fundamental basics of life but also discovering the intrinsic biographical value of cooperative activity for themselves: This comes down to the fact

that, in cooperatives, consumers are their own suppliers, tenants are their own landlords, borrowers are their own lenders and employees are their own employers. This identity principle allows market interests to be negated, provides direct regulation, proactive customer behaviour and great consideration for members’ interests. Moreover, it offers an excellent basis for political efforts to introduce processes of self-organisation in socio-political fields, not only making state funding targeted (rather than hit-and-miss) but also mobilising people’s willingness to help themselves, reinforcing the effect of that state funding. (Elsen, 2004, p. 44)

This kind of local cooperative cyclical model can activate a local tension between the civic and the socio-political perspectives, thus becoming independent correlates in a welfare state which does not just hand out booster funds but – now involved in discourses on citizens’ entitlements – is reminded of its opportunities for shaping the socio-political environment. “Managing common property” (Pankoke, 2000), especially, can lead precisely to that interweaving of the civic society and economic perspective which – “correcting” the market, so to speak – can provide access and chances for participation to disadvantaged social groups, in particular.

In contrast to the 1970s, when self-help businesses were considered part of the niche economy, today there are weighty voices in the global economic debate which not only believe that community economics can act on a regional scale to balance out the socio-economic effect of globalized business, but also point out its importance in developing sustainable socio-economic structures (see Stiglitz, 2004). After all, the membership structure and thus the quality structure in community economies of the kind developing in the tertiary sector have changed considerably. As rationalization drives do not stop at either banks or the new ITC companies, there are now not just plenty of qualified people interested in local production cooperatives alongside the large companies; there is also commitment on the part of social associations, cooperatives and civic business initiatives, backed up by economic and entrepreneurial qualifications.

Altogether, we today seem to have been transported, so to speak, back to the era when the industrial capitalism of the modern age began to set in, in the late nineteenth century. Then, as now (though in the past the context was the nation state) the idea was for individuals to cultivate their common ground and, above all, for democratically and socially safeguarded margins for negotiation to be promoted, offsetting capitalist forms of sociation and allowing people to play an active role in shaping society rather than being seen as the victims of social circumstances. Correspondingly, one achievement of social policy in the national welfare states of the twentieth century was that instead of calls for “human rights” in general, moral terms and speaking of “poor” people as different to others, now – with talk of people having “less of” and being refused or having less “participation in” historically defined social and cultural goods, values and rights – a whole range of concrete points became sharply visible and negotiable for the first time (Evers & Nowotny, 1987, p. 161). However, this also means (especially today, now that the welfare state has become indispensable as a barrier against the pull of globalized capitalism) that community economics initiatives can make use of this safety net offered by the welfare state, just as the welfare state itself can benefit from its ability to create social interests and shape the local environment. This is also the basis for the socio-political legitimacy behind combining community economics with social work. In our opinion, this principle of tying in with the welfare state applies to all civic-society models, even those which developed during the crisis of the welfare state.

11.2Citizenship

Since at least the 1990s, the concept of civil society as a preliminary plan for socio-political regulation has joined the model of the welfare state in social work discourses. According to this, justice, freedom and shaping social phenomena should no longer be conditioned within the walls of state regulation and bureaucratization but should be left to the unrestricted interplay of civic forces. After all, say critics, the model of safety under the welfare state contradicts the social and emancipatory rights of the individual at the end of the twentieth century. With its rationalizing procedures and aspirations to equality, the welfare state, they say, does no justice either to people’s self-wills or to the pluralized ways they live in the society of the second modernity. Moreover, goes the criticism, it alienates people (who are cut off from their traditional social ties and ways of life) from actively taking responsibility for leading their own lives; in fact, it “nationalizes” or collectivizes responsibility for individual life courses and the common good precisely at a time when people rely on their own biographies as their main social project. Accordingly, being governed from above by the state was pilloried as “being besieged by care” (Keupp, 1996) or as the recipient of assistance taking the passive attitude of a consumer towards welfare state benefits. The tension between the security of the welfare state and human autonomy was seen as increasingly irreconcilable.

With this in mind, ever since there have been calls for the state to open up to civil society, following the US model, with the state seeing itself as providing a service for individualized people, as individuals can strengthen the common good most effectively when they take personal responsibility for their biographical life project: the idea was that citizens who are responsible for themselves also feel responsible for others as a result. Following the epoch of state regulation, the era of blossoming individual civic power is expected to start, of its own accord, on the path to a new common interest, fuelled by individuals themselves. The social issue, which is seen as being managed by the welfare state and thus as incapacitating society, is to be released from the cage of concession into the river of participation. Leaving the state behind, a new political constitution of society is to be born where citizens themselves are the active regulators. The construct of the active citizen is to be used to revitalize social design, responsibility and justice within the community, shifting them into an intermediary sphere of action. The initiatives and associations which develop within these intermediary civic structures (local campaigns, round tables, periodic alliances of interests and even transnational networks and NGOs) are to transform the way that socially active citizens behave within society. In this spirit, the term “civil society” covered all the non-state institutions which created “a network of institutions that are independent from the state”, “which by their very existence, or by their activities, can bring influence to bear on policy” (Taylor, 1991, p. 52).

However, this entire argumentation ignores the fact that it is also the values and principles of civil society which have had a crucial effect on the development of the European countries since the turn of the twentieth century (see Eley, 1991). Moreover, it is rarely mentioned that even the social movements and reformatory trends of the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, which fought for the social taming of capitalism and the humanization of capitalist industrialized society, were intended to support people as social citizens in the process of shaping society and thus to give society a mien of social justice. In the German discourse on the civil society, this conflictive perspective with its criticism of capitalism was largely ignored. It had, incidentally, accompanied the implementation of community organizations in English-speaking countries from the very start, one obvious example being the battles fought by Jane Addams in Chicago. Today, fundraising, social sponsoring and the strategy of corporate citizenship are intended to bridge the gap between economic and social interests.

However, for social work, it is not only the hostile attitude towards the welfare state which makes this kind of civil society discourse problematic. One of the most serious problems is that the focus is basically always on working adult citizens. There is almost no focus on citizens in dependent situations in life and situations of coping, especially the young and old. Though this discourse is praised as countering that of the welfare state, in fact it is tied in with the welfare state model of a work-based society, if indirectly. Young and old people, who either are not yet or are no longer members of this work-based society, thus also appear as what might be called social groups which are incapable of citizenship, but who always need to be taken care of, unless they take care of one another. Many projects run by local civic trusts or by supranational foundations which portray themselves as being part of civil society are projects borne from social responsibility for such groups and thus often nothing less than a replacement or stopgap with relation to the welfare state.

In this context, families take on importance once again as a key resource in achieving a firm social status and thus for “producing” citizens. This is because the groups of citizens who are active within the community, forming from civil society practice and showing civil society commitment to social work or helping the elderly, are nourished by the economic surplus provided by their individual biographical resources: a local group of “fully formed surplus-capable” citizens “take care” of the socially disadvantaged or of projects which, though they represent a sense of civic duty, say little about the civic status of those whom the “fully formed citizens” are looking after. In other words, the clients among the citizenry are not assigned conflict-resistant participation rights but are conceded patrimonial participation. A civic society of this kind turns out to be an asymmetric society of concession. The “fully formed citizens” need those who are “incapable of citizenship” to display their status as citizens. For this reason, at some point, conflict breaks out within the civic trusts over the question of how the targets of civic involvement can have a say in procedures of concession (which are not, after all, protected under social security law).

11.3Care

Within the historical, empirical definition, care has a socio-anthropological, an interactive and a social dimension. From the point of view of social anthropology, care can be described as a human experience of being taken care of, as a basic form of attachment, internalized in early childhood. The description of human beings as social beings fits in with the interactive aspect of care as a context of being reliant upon one another. Finally, from the point of view of the social system, we define care as public contexts of substituted inclusion. These three dimensions do not each stand alone but are linked in different ways and in different contexts, resulting in the ambivalence of caring and being cared for. As a category of relationship which is rooted in the unconscious and has a social effect, care is asymmetrical in structure and characterized by correspondingly confused power relationships. As care is liberated by the dynamics of the current dissolution of boundaries, this ambivalence is coming into public view. Here, we are once more coming up against one of the characteristic paradoxes of advanced capitalism: care is being liberated and, at the same time, commercialized again – transformed within economized cultures of appropriation. The neo-capitalist processes of social disembedding, the social dissolution of boundaries and the erosion of the welfare state which form the background to the liberation of care are being turned into links with consumerist structuring. A commercial culture of the appropriation of care is forming in linguistic symbolism and recurring events. A network of charity events is turning commercial and privatized care into a social network whose structures hide the fact that care is a commodity. In the mediatized world of the advertising industry, care is offered everywhere in modules: as kits combining elements of care and structuring, however contradictory they may be. This includes advertising for cars, insurance and real estate. Wolfgang Fritz Haug described this process of modularization in his book on the dissolution of boundaries within commodity aestheticism, “Entgrenzung der Warenästhetik” (2001). In the virtual world of the new capitalism, the product is no longer produced in the factory; now it becomes a consumerist product in the media. The goods and their images merge together to appeal to our feelings. They have a reassuring effect: commodity aesthetics can turn our cares into a carefree feeling.

At the same time, in line with the dynamics of globalization under advanced capitalism, a globalized culture of care has developed. Citizens of the world are reliant on one another. The headlines are dominated by discourses on climate change, migration, poverty and wealth, but closer inspection shows that these care-related discourses are characterized by asymmetry. They are the discourses of a fortress mentality: we have to deal with the poor and those who have fallen behind; we have to take care of them so that they do not become a threat one day, standing in even greater numbers outside our walls. Socio-economic and political conflicts are turned into relationships of care. The world’s billionaires deal with the world’s problems. The US “success and benefits” model is getting a grip worldwide: if you have economic success, however you got hold of your money (e.g. at the cost of others), you are morally obliged to give some of it away to those who are not rich. Of course, they can then be expected to behave accordingly, not to disappoint the donor. Thus, existing power relations can be reinterpreted as relationships of care and thus kept stable, though with a new legitimacy. Cultures of care thus become cultures of concealment.

The privatization of public care this involves can, however, be seen not only globally but also locally. As the welfare state’s safety net has worn away, there has been a tendency to shift care which was previously public into the private confines of the close family. Public care is thus not just moving from the state to the market, but to the families as well. Public care has always been embedded in the social policy of the welfare state. This came about historically due to the conflict between labour and capital. The welfare state’s social policy is an institutionalized attempt to balance out labour and capital to some extent and create an equilibrium, however fragile. Advanced capitalism, with its dynamics of globalization and rationalization, has almost destroyed that equilibrium, creating an imbalance between labour and capital in national societies which has thrown the welfare state into financial and political crisis. This is also linked to a dissolution of boundaries in the context of welfare state care. Social risks are increasingly being privatized; the recently much-discussed tendency for living circumstances to become increasingly precarious has been shifted into the centre of society, the empirical effect of a new dynamics of sociation which is characterized by care. People are driven to work on their biographies both by a fear of sliding down the social ladder and by a hope of being among those who manoeuvre their way to success under the new capitalism.

These dynamics of growing care are also affecting two key areas in people’s life course: adolescence and generational relationships. Today, the construct of the moratorium for young people has become increasingly fragile; youth has come under social pressure. In youth research, adolescence is defined as a social prototype for substituted inclusion as well, and thus as a situation of care. Young people are expected to develop within a protected social space, experimenting without any biographical risk. As young people are no longer seen as being in a special stage of development, but instead viewed socially as potential human capital, while at the same time the transition to the labour society has become unregulated and full of risk, a fine line separates the zones of experiment and risk for young people. In this extended transition period, young people remain reliant on their parents; the process of separation is delayed and family care is extended. Here, too, we are again experiencing the familialization of this transition: the family of origin is under pressure to make the strains of this transition its business. The parents have to set aside their own coping problems while at the same time trying to manage the problems of the transition using the resources of the family world of intimate relationships. This can lead to young people who are forced to reach a consensus with their family and thus prefer always to adapt their behaviour, rather than entering into a conflict of interests (see Menz, 2008). The familialization of transitions into the world of work, which are dealt with in public, is turning transitional relationships into intimate contexts of care with strong ties to the pursuit of agency. This means that, in many places, the generational relationship has become a caring relationship. Generational conflict, once seen as a necessary part of socialization, driving personality development, has increasingly faded into the background. At the same time, a split can be seen in generational relations: on the one hand, the families and their young people are forced by necessity to draw closer, cutting themselves off from social conflict; on the other, competition between the generations is entering the public sphere. In the digital world of being constantly on the ball, neither biographical development nor biographical experience counts. Thirty-five-year-old workers are confronted by twenty-year-olds competing for their job on the same level as them.

The privatization of care and the transformation of transitional problems and generational relationships within relationships of care are causing the boundaries to dissolve between public and private life in a way that was in fact the target of the feminist discourses of the 1980s and 1990s – though with an odd twist. The twentieth-century feminist discourse on care followed the women’s movements and their research discourses in the direction of deprivatizing care work. The idea was that care should move from having feminine connotations to being a principle of social design (see Salomon, 1931). Socially recognized and integrated care work was to give growth-fixated, externalized capitalism a human face, impose a social curb upon it. However, this also assumed that maternal care work would have to be placed on an equal setting with paid work. Yet this social transformation of care is not so simple to crack: as a private matter in the feminine world of the family, care loses its self-evident nature if it is to be transferred to the contractual world of the work-based society. After all, care is not a contractual category; it does not involve any “promise of reciprocity” but is upheld through the experience and “acceptance of a relationship” (Eckart, 2000, p. 19). In the contractual world, care can become a vessel for unspoken conflict; it can undermine contractual relationships and make hidden relational powers more potent. As the boundaries of labour dissolve and work pervades everyday life, meanwhile, familial spheres of care are being drawn in by work, and further pressure can develop for care work to be privatized. Simultaneously, care work is increasingly being marketed, creating divisions within the sphere of care.

In the discourse throughout Europe, care is coming to be understood as the “core” of a feminist social policy which will increasingly permeate the social policy of the welfare state. Here, the aim is not only to extend the concept of work by recognizing childraising as a job, but also to achieve “social practice” whose activation lies “in public (and no longer private) responsibility, retaining private aspects of care without being established as an aspect of women’s identity and duties” (Brückner, 2001, p. 133). What is important here is thus that the care perspective is socially and socio-politically separated from the gendered (female) definition, otherwise economic and social policy can always cite that link and demand that women withdraw from the social process of work. This would be reinforced by the fact that women themselves commit to being carers. For this reason, Brückner believes, care should no longer be labelled a feminine property, but should be seen as a skill which, in the socio-political sociation process, arises from women, and which should be made non-gendered:

The feminist criticism that work and love (for one’s family or one’s neighbour) are only placed on the same setting for women only applies to their social function, not to care work per se. After all, care is seen as of central importance in view of the human urge to feel needed, which remains devaluated and invisible as long as it is considered a female gender attribute and not a general social task. (Brückner, 2001, p. 173)

In view of the erosion of standard working conditions (with their masculine connotations) and the increasing need for social reintegration activities as a consequence of globalization, this would be an almost ideal way of restructuring society.

The pressure to make decisions of this kind is now starting to be felt more strongly. This has basically revived the old subject of conflict under industrial modernity: what should be the aim of the economy; who is it there for, how can you measure its value, and should that value not come before the market? In this connection, one project is currently of interest which comes from economic theory and has now, finally, been brought into political discourse as well. Fast on its way to becoming a global discourse with political support, it is the search for a human-friendly formula for growth. The discourse on the humanization of growth is reigniting the conflict between capital and the social idea. As this perspective of humanization necessarily precedes that of care, this may open up a gateway into society for social work which the new programme of the welfare state, among other things, seemed to have slammed shut. The current starting point for this is the discourse on evaluating social economic development – the indicators according to which development and growth can be judged, a discourse which appears within science in works on a “national welfare index” (see Diefenbacher & Zieschank, 2008). This calculates, for example, voluntary activities and the value of family housework among welfare provisions; criminality rates are counted among the costs of welfare. In view of the increasing social and ecological costs of economic growth using a one-dimensional definition, GDP, the previous key value for measuring the wealth of a modern society, has also come under fire as it has become evident that advancing, accelerated economic growth does not automatically improve people’s lives. Above a certain level of wealth, increasing the income per capita no longer necessarily leads to an improvement in people’s well-being, as it only relates to the number of goods and services and maximizing them as they appear on the markets. It does not take into account the ecological and social costs of consuming resources and of processes of social disintegration. As well as neglecting the services provided within families, homes and the voluntary sector, it also ignores the infrastructural effects of social integration which result from social work, extending beyond individual measures. Altogether it is thus no longer predominantly about the market level of quality of life; instead, it is about its social relativization and the social embeddedness of living circumstances. This puts the economic principle of growth at odds with social development.

11.4Social Justice

Social work is intended to help allow living circumstances to develop in a more socially just manner. Social justice is the socio-ethical dimension of welfare policy. It is not an abstract factor but a historically developed construct and a central institution of the welfare state. It developed historically in that it is backed by two hundred years of development of the social modernization of industrial societies, from the liberty and civil rights of the French Revolution to the social rights which were fought for by social movements, eventually institutionalized in the form of the welfare state. Within the welfare state, it was the conflict between the social movements which found a historical compromise in capital (and thus, so to speak, found a middle ground in the struggle for justice). As a result, social justice is not only seen as being ordained from above, by the state, but also as coming from below, as the citizens’ will. This will, as a sign of approval, was generally assumed to come from the effects of a collective welfare state identity drawing its empirical power from the guarantee of a socio-political safety net and the certainty of integration. “In this interpretation, deficits in justice do not manifest as comparative inequality” (Schramme, 2006, p. 237), but as deficits in integration. At the same time, people need to have opportunities for political and social participation which put them in a position to get justice within the welfare state for themselves. It was with this in mind that the construct of “justice of access” was developed within the social pedagogical discourse (see Böhnisch, Schröer & Thiersch, 2005).

The institutionalized justice of the welfare state thus has three central determining principles. Firstly, it developed historically through struggles for justice, even though the welfare state later mediated those struggles, so it can only come into effect in a society which can recognize and support conflicts as a basic pattern of sociation. Secondly, social justice is based on the foundations of social integration, in that a collective safety net is guaranteed. Thirdly and finally, it takes effect within the principle of restriction, which is not only regulated through the welfare state mechanism of entitlements and expectations but is also, especially, expressed in the fact that modern industrial societies tend to gravitate towards their social centre. In other words, they are based on a middle class which makes deviation either upward or downward appear socially acceptable rather than socially divisive. Moreover, similarly to the socio-philosophical model developed by Rawls (1975), as long as socially disadvantaged people feel collectively secure and able to participate, they will not necessarily see their position as unfair. In this context, consumption has become a medium of perceived justice and belonging as it conveys a subjective impression of participation. This is why, in the second half of the twentieth century, welfare state programmes and measures have mainly focused on enabling socially disadvantaged groups, in particular, to be consumers: what might well be described as a policy of “shopping basket justice”.

As the boundaries of the welfare state have blurred due to globalization, the welfare state tie to the perspective of justice has loosened considerably, and it will erode even further in the future. The new dissolution of boundaries is replacing the traditional principle of restriction and mediatization. Exclusion and inclusion are no longer counterpoles; in a digital world they are shifting social points which constantly seem to change and are almost without borders. The financial and economic crises of the 2000s pulled the middle classes into a vortex of potential failure, striking at the social foundations of the welfare state model of justice. At the same time, the principle of justice that is the boundary – as in a restriction – has been lastingly damaged. Lastingly, as in the foreseeable future there seems to be no chance either of drawing nationally accessible boundaries or of achieving transnationally binding restrictions. What is new and obvious about the current global situation is that it tends to divide into two normative universes based on contradictory principles regarding their functioning and justification. The global money market knows no boundaries, but it is a lack of boundaries that human beings, with their social ties, cannot get to grips with, although it produces crises with serious consequences for them. This sends out shockwaves of injustice which cannot, however, lead to a socially related discourse on justice, precisely because the injustice which is sensed or assumed to exist cannot be determined in socially mediated contexts. Equally, doubt is growing about the policy on justice put forward by the welfare state, which is poorly equipped to combat this global affliction.

In view of this it was only to be expected that the discourse on justice within society, previously centred on the welfare state, would blur into a number of discussions seeking new focuses. This blurring of boundaries means that within social work, we can no longer so routinely refer to the welfare state formula for justice; instead, we are forced to reconstruct a perspective on justice which is oriented towards our clients, enabling them to be repositioned in terms of social policy. This is where David Miller’s theory of justice, with its empirical links, can help us. Miller distinguishes between three principles of justice which take effect in three empirically identifiable spheres of everyday understandings of justice. The first is an awareness that citizens have equal rights; the second is a meritocratic recognition that people deserve different incomes and earnings depending on the different values of their function within an organization, and the third principle is a feeling for the fundamental needs which exist within social milieus and social relationships – needs which are often not comparable. Miller thus proposes a pluralist account of justice in which the principle of equality among citizens has just as much of an effect as the meritocratic principle within organizations and the market, or the principle of need within solidary communities. These principles of justice can exist alongside one another, compete with one another and be related to one another.

Welfare state programmes aiming at justice do not promise it directly but take their rationale from the perspective of striving for justice. This absolutely allows us to imagine differentiated contexts of justice within a society. This is precisely why Miller’s concept of justice, with its empirically distinct tableaus of justice, is of interest to us within social work. It proposes that different attitudes towards justice and practices have formed within the populations of modern industrial societies. People develop different views of justice because they live in different social relational contexts: as citizens, as the holders of certain roles within organizations, and as members of communities tied to certain milieus.

Within solidaristic communities, the substantive principle of justice is distribution according to need. [. . .] The second mode of relationship is instrumental association. [. . .] Insofar as relationships among a group of people approximate to instrumental association, the relevant principle of justice is distribution according to desert. Each person comes to the association [. . .] with a set of skills and talents that he deploys to advance its goals. Justice is done when he receives back by way of reward an equivalent to the contribution he makes. [. . .] The third relevant mode of association relevant to my theory of justice is citizenship. [. . .] The primary distributive principle of distribution of citizenship association is equality. The status of citizen is an equal status: each person enjoys the same set of liberties and rights. (Miller, 2003, p. 27ff)

These three basic dimensions can (as in the case of state welfare benefits, for example) be related: the social consensus is that the unemployed, for instance, must be given “just” support to maintain their citizenship according to the principle of desert (defined by the wage gap principle) and the principle of need (determined according to the principle of a minimum living wage fit to maintain human dignity). “For Miller there thus seems to be no theoretical justification for norms of social justice, but instead only a practical foundation in human life. When principles are not lived out, where there is no longer a shared understanding, they vanish as principles of justice” (Schramme, 2006, p. 115).

This interpretation of Millerian logic is important for us; we can use it to bridge the gap to the universe of justice in which the clients of social work live. In this regard, our theory is that the way in which the socially disadvantaged experience and are able to live out justice depends on the effects of the socio-political safety net beneath them and the opportunities and obstacles this creates. Empirically, they can be seen in extended or regressive forms of coping. If the welfare state’s web of justice, as in a socio-political safety net, rips apart, this can trigger attitudes in people which involve their sense of justice coming undone from the ties of the welfare state and, so to speak, undertaking a U-turn. After all, the sense of justice promoted by the welfare state even predominates within groups on the margins of society as long as they still perceive themselves as a social group which has socio-political recognition, though (being on the margins) they do not usually look for any comparison group. Usually, the principle of justice which they follow is the principle of direct care under the welfare state. However, if this socio-political safety net is under threat, even those on the margins look for comparison groups, though not usually within the intrasocietal hierarchy of status and income (which has of course traditionally been left alone) but within groups of similar status from which they can dissociate themselves. These are mainly migrants and refugees, onto whom their newly awakened sense of injustice is projected. A sense of justice is thus closely linked to the way people cope with life. This also means that the perspective of justice can be operationalized for the field of social work: extended agency, as encouraged on social pedagogical projects, can produce the social surplus which allows people to appreciate the consequences their own actions will have on other, thus directing their sense of justice away from antisocial splitting to a self-determined articulation of interests.

This is the set of conditions under which social work could transform social justice, making it effective on an everyday basis in a welfare state. In the future, social work’s clients will remain dependent on the welfare state, just as the latter will place restrictions on global dynamics whenever they threaten social integration. However, the safety net which can be offered by the welfare state will remain fragile. For this reason, regional social and cultural networks offering social support and recognition will continue to grow in importance, though they will have to be mediated by social workers to make them accessible to our clients (see Munsch, 2005).

The fact that we stick to the perspective of the welfare state (thus formulated) cannot, however, mean that social work is, so to speak, isolated in a globalized social environment, trying to keep its beneficiaries away from global dynamics. After all, the globalization process, with its transnational dissolution of boundaries, is letting loose fundamental life-related issues which previously appeared to be tucked quietly away in the drawers provided for such problems by the nation state and welfare state. Even today, this is already on a greater scale than that which developed nationally. What effect do images of drastically collapsing situations of poverty in the world have on our domestic discourse on poverty? What notions of justice do migrants have when they come to our country and make demands? On a transnational level we cannot speak (at least not within the foreseeable future) of socio-politically backed social justice. Miller, too, differentiates between social and global justice, though he has reason to hope that there will be interaction between the global and the social perspective on justice.

Globalizers are wrong to assume that the promotion of social justice is impossible in a globalized economy, because some elements of social justice have a positive (or at least a neutral) effect on economic efficiency, but they are right to point out that other elements, particularly the reduction of inequality element, become problematic to the extent that economic agents are able to escape the constraints imposed by nation-states. [. . .] In these circumstances, the pursuit of social justice requires a two-handed strategy. On the one hand, we have to look to new ways of promoting old principles [. . .] On the other hand, recognizing that nation-states have so far been the main instruments of social justice, we must look for ways of reinforcing their authority and effectiveness in the face of the global economy. This may mean creating new political units that correspond better than existing ones to the identities that matter most to citizens, or it may mean more cross-national institutions that can cope better with the challenges posed by globalization and multiculturalism. (Miller, 2003, p. 264f.)

The social pedagogical discourse of the future will have to play out on these three interacting levels. On the one hand, for example, it will have to keep addressing the subject of how the perspective of the welfare state can be reformulated in terms of the civil society such that people are emancipated from absolute dependence on the work-based society but can still rely on a socio-political safety net (see Böhnisch & Schröer, 2002). On the other hand, and at the same time, the perspective of setting up regional network structures with a socio-political focus will have to be spurred on. Finally, social work, too will have to react to the dissolution of national boundaries by making what were once international connections transnational and strengthening them, i.e. not only drawing socio-political comparisons with social workers in other countries but working on shared transnational topics which are fundamental to life and can no longer be confined within national boundaries.