I know that I'm not a do-gooder because I bring my thoughts on paper

During the last two months I have been writing on my PhD (besides two moves, a journey to germany, translating an article, and some other energy-taking things). I got a bit stressed out which is a bit uncommon for me. This took over my mind and I became a bit not so nice company. But I still have friends (at least, as far as I think).

For the 1st year some kind of literature review is required basically showing that i know what im talking about. i handed the written things in last Thursday, in a complete state of 'mashiness.' my mind feels like mash, no clear thought is possible any more and when im talking its more or less messy and complete nonsense. the mash has no taste, not even like the lovely rose and crown mashed potato taste. tho the mashy feeling in my mind might have the taste of diet coke as this was what i have been drinking a lot every day. anyhow, now when i finished the things i thought i could tell a bit about my topic, and of course, to get some mash out of my head...

The title of my phd is 'Corporations and Employee Welfare'. My aim is to analyse and describe activities and provisions companies do for their employees besides the normal payment of a salary or the like. so everything like pensions, health care, kindergartens, vocational training, flexible working arrangements, or telling their employees what is going on in the company. Of course im not writing there in a vacuum. corporate welfare is situated in the broader context of welfare as such which includes governmental welfare. thus the second aim of my phd is the discuss whether corporate welfare might be an alternative option or complement to governmental welfare. the issue is that welfare states are somewhat outdated through their origins. the foundations they were built on are more or less not valid any more. furthermore, they are in a transformation process towards more neoliberal practices. it remains questionable whether this is the appropriate or only way. however it is, corporate welfare can be at least an addition and lighten states' burden.
theoretically i will use luhmann's theory of social systems which is classified as functional structuralism, as i have been told in my very first lecture in 2001 (long time ago...). structures serve one purpose, that of functionality of systems. i use him because it will allow me to see corporate welfare as a unique development, independent from states (tho still dependent enough at the same time), in every country and company itself. i also can discuss then the relationships between state, economy and society (society in the sense of citizens and employees; ive to be careful there. hardcore luhmannists could take my use of society wrong here). the theory is quite hard to get into as luhmann had a weird characteristic and used lots of unknown words or concepts. this probably explains why my mind is so mashy. i also have to make sure that i use the correct language. e.g. environments can irritate systems but they cannot influence or direct them in the plain sense. who shall understand this..??!!?? or this one: i will do what you want if you do what i want. apart from the conditioning and tautology there is a point of nothingness, or how i would say, null-point, because if both just wait for the other to do something nothing will happen. so. but all this mashiness might be more because of me putting myself under pressure and demanding a lot from myself. apart from systems theory i will use some other sociological theories and some economic theories as well. The nicest of economic theories are Nash’s equilibrium and comparative advantages. The first is highly mathematical and I don’t have any clue. But maybe later. The other is quite interesting once I got the logic. What I have finished so far is the introduction to Luhmann and a discussion of the economic subsystem. The whole, I tried to differentiate from structuration theory and Habermas as these are sociological theories which could have been used. I don’t think they have a similar explanation power for my purpose; only a few bits are useful, namely imagination from structuration and colonization from Habermas. These are just rough ideas so far but I hope I can develop this a bit more later on. Finally I got into a discussion whether neoliberalism and capitalism can be regarded as components of a reflexive modernity and thus as risk producing. They basically have the tendency to destroy themselves under certain conditions. The market is not as expandable as it seems. At some point everyone will have a car and a fridge and nothing can be sold any more. And especially with cars, if the company doesn’t see the change in environmental policies and, most of all, attitudes it will inevitably be lost. Why else experience native US American carmakers such loses? 20 liters per hundred kilometers are not en vogue any more.
It sounds a bit Marxian but I wouldn’t say so. I instead argue that companies are pretty aware of this now and pay attention. I almost would say that capitalism is not so bad at all. There are some features which are good. And very pragmatic, it’s the only system which has survived until now. BUT. I’m a child of socialist system with all its advantages and disadvantages. The other day I spent some thoughts on this and I can conclude that capitalists are just catching up now in some respect. In the former GDR (I don’t know about other countries) companies did a lot of care for their employees. Kindergartens are only one example. Or health care. There were already provisions in place which ensured the wellbeing of employees. BUT (again; that’s the nice thing about sociology, there is always a But). The conditions under which these activities took place were not so nice. There was no freedom of choice or any other freedom. The whole welfare provisions basically served one aim, that of control. The children you pamper today are your followers tomorrow. (or something like that) free will wasn’t on the list of the state leaders. Rather blind stupid sheep. I don’t know if I will discuss similarities of capitalist and socialist corporate welfare. Maybe I do. Might be worthwile.
This Tuesday I will have a board meeting with my supervisor and another person where we will discuss my written material. There it will be decided whether I can proceed to my second year or not. It probably will last about 2 hours (I can talk so long….). When this is done I’m done as well. Then I will just read a few more books before going back to germany and starting this research job in network analysis.
I haven’t started my fieldwork yet. My plan is to have one company each in UK, Germany and one Nordic country. I will interview managers and employees and hopefully can conduct a survey amongst employees as well. This will definitely last for the next year. If everything goes well I will be able to do a pilot study during the summer in germany, just to test my things. Altogether I will back up by a secondary analysis of Eurobarometer datasets (the nice ones, with all EU countries and 250,000 respondents; the datasets my students are afraid of…). What will be the outcome of my PhD? It is very likely that I come to the conclusion that every company can and should do one or another form of welfare. For all kinds of companies measures and activities are available. Companies can spend money or get for free. It seems as if non-monetary measures like being nice to employees and allowing them flexible working patters have the greatest positive effect on their wellbeing. If this is really so all the talking about the costs of welfare and the like is just bolox. Just excuses.

I would like to thank all who have been around, talked to me on the squares, got drunk with me, kept me busy, wrote to me (tho I never replied), laughed with me, cried with me, to cut a long story short: I thank everybody.