Did you know seagulls can fly? My dog seemed not to, and while he futilely, repeatedly chased them I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a great talk by Claudia Imperatore on peer disclosure spillovers from scandals on Mohamed Elsalkh's Business, Accounting, and Economics seminar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8EWHHEqSX8

Next was "In Essentials, Unity" by Jenny Bourne. This book delivers a great history of the Grange and its impact on the US and its history more broadly. Much of the meat of this book is concerned with its heyday in the 1800s, with their efforts to fight local railroad monopolies through political action being central here. These actions, and the subsequent pushback from industrialists and their apologists, mirror events in the 21st century and are instructive as to how to cement lasting reforms. The book concludes with more of a chronology of later activities as the Grange became dramatically smaller and less influential. Highly recommend https://www.ohioswallow.com/9780821422373/in-essentials-unity/

Last was "Private Government" by Elizabeth Anderson. Anderson is at her strongest in the first lecture of this volume, where she interrogates 18th and 19th century economic thought to show why it doesn't apply to modern conditions. Unfortunately she then completely falls flat in the way most philosophers do: arguing theoretically about what are fundamentally empirical questions. In a nutshell, she posits that modern companies are in fact a powerful form of government that requires different regulations. Her description of how companies function is, to put it mildly, divorced from reality and indicative of a lack of engagement with real work, workers, and data collection within organizations. This is not to say that some of her points aren't important - indeed, we certainly need stronger worker protections, higher wage levels, and other reforms. The commentary by other academics here is decent, but it's still woefully lacking in real world grounding https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691176512/private-government