With its origins in organismic biology, systems theory underscores the importance of systems striving towards homeostasis and equilibrium. This has placed an inordinate emphasis on the adaptation and coping discourse – that individuals must adapt to and cope with adverse life circumstances. System-maintenance approaches and functions, which have come to permeate social work and social policy, has been widely criticized. Sewpaul (2005) critiqued South Africa’s 2005 proposed Family Policy (Department of Social Development [DSD], 2005), which adopted a conservative, judgmental, personal-deficiency, and residual approach to family living. The Policy began with a situational analysis, which read as follows:
In the second decade of democracy, South Africans continue to suffer the ravages of an oppressive and exploitative legacy. The long-term effects of apartheid, migrant labour, land displacement, rapid urbanization, and poor rural development, amongst others, may require no less than a generation to redress.
Add to this widespread poverty, escalating incidences of HIV infection and AIDS, rampant domestic violence and rape, growing sexual abuse of children, and increasing crime and drug trafficking, and hope for the future becomes even bleaker.
Incredulously, the above was immediately followed by: “In all of this the Family remains the crux of how South Africans cope – or fail to cope – in a society challenged with rebuilding the moral fibre within individuals and amongst communities (DSD: 2005, p. 6, emphasis mine). The document made 10 additional calls for the moral regeneration of individuals and communities. Sewpaul (2005) pointed out that there were two obvious problems reflected in the document. Firstly, the burden of coping with South Africa’s huge problems is reduced to the level of individuals and families, without recognition of the structural sources of unemployment, economic oppression and exclusions, inequality and poverty on people’s lives, and the profound roles that society and State play in contributing to the way that families cope. Secondly, rebuilding the moral fibre of individuals and communities was seen to be the panacea for all the problems mentioned. The Family Policy speaks to “the value of self-reliance over dependency and learned helplessnes… The family should restore its pride and dignity in order to reverse dependency and the displacement of family responsibility” (DSD, 2005, p. 55, emphasis mine). The text reflects a conservative, neoliberal appropriation of language to justify abdication of state responsibility towards families, reflects a “goodness of fit” approach, and calls for families to adapt to and cope with conditions that they have no control over. Sewpaul (2005) concluded her critique of the Family Policy by posing the following question: If external socio-economic, political and cultural factors are maintaining families in poor, dispossessed and helpless positions, how are such families expected to move toward independence and self-reliance within the same structural constraints? (p. 9).
Systems theory emphasis on homeostasis and equilibrium has minimized recognition that disequilibrium may be a necessary precursor to gain and positive change. On the other hand, in Pincus and Minahan’s systems approach, the conception of the social worker as “change agent”, bears the risk of change itself being seen as the goal, which might detract from the actual needs and problems of people (Hutchinson and Otedal, 2014).
As a grand narrative, systems theory is seen to be too ambitious, with some assuming that a single profession can be all things to all people (Hutchinson and Otedal, 2014). Also the theory focuses on how society is. Questions around aesthetics, morality, ethics, how society “ought to be” do not feature. At best, the theory has a “weak focus on morals and ethics”; there is “no stand taken and conflicts of interests are not identified” (Hutchinson and Otedal, 2014, p. 222).
The theory does not focus on power relations in society, and places no moral imperative on the part of the social worker to challenge and undo oppression, poverty, inequality, exclusion and marginalization, which are almost always linked to intersecting social criteria such as race, class, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, age, (dis)ability and nationality.
