The Family

Abstract

The other chapters in this section all reflect the main categories of Marxist analysis, but some of them may seem to have their application at some distance from the day-to-day concerns of social workers: for example, the way in which production as an analytical tool works it way through to the day-to-day crises of social workers may at first sight appear difficult to understand. Yet in all these areas there is a well-worked-through set of literature within the Marxian tradition. This chapter, though, provides us with a different problem. The family represents an obvious area of practice for the social worker; there is a vast and increasing amount of literature about the institution and the social worker’s role in relating to it. Yet there has been very little discussion about the institution within the Marxist tradition and very little practice within Marxist politics. Such a gap in the tradition has always left social workers with the impression that the working-class movement and Marxism as a political theory have been totally uninterested in the small-scale individualistic problems of family life. That this is not the case is demonstrated by the fact that the women’s movement in various forms has resurrected the Marxist concern with the family both theoretically and politically.