#AcademicRunPlaylist - 8/24/24

Author

Ben Waber
August 24, 2024

A selfie of me on a wide paved path through the woods with a wooden fence on the left. I'm a bald, middle-aged, white man with a red beard flecked with white wearing thick black glasses and a red shirt

It was great weather in Boston today, which made for a great backdrop while finishing the first batch of audiobooks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

For future reference, if you want to check out my list of books and my full ratings/reviews I'll be posting them here: https://bookwyrm.social/list/3130/s/academicrunplaylist

First was Capital and Ideology by Thomas Piketty. This is a massive tome (~49 hours for the audiobook) on the complex interactions between economics and politics and how these interactions lead to different levels of inequality. Piketty provides a broad survey of economic concepts around inequality, as well as an in depth review of shifting political preferences.

This is a very macro focused book, and the few places where Piketty examines micro and corporate governance issues are fairly poor and uninformed, but thankfully those portions are only a small part of the book.

The book shines when it's focused on historical trends, particularly the lasting impact of slavery and colonialism both economically and politically. It suffers a bit from an only cursory examination of countries that avoid many of the issues Piketty identifies, such as South Korea and Japan, and far too much time examining trends in France, the UK, and the US.

I really liked the shocking histories of Sweden, which went from being one of the most unequal countries of the world (allocating votes based on land ownership, even giving votes to companies), and the extractive and unequal history of French colonialism in the Caribbean.

Still, Piketty succeeds in identifying the outsized influence of the power of capital and ideology in shaping how inequality develops. Rather than being an iron law of the universe, this book lays out an unassailable case for taking on inequality through ideological and policy changes.

Last was Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber. While a bit too focused on European pre-history than I'd like, this is still an incredible view into the evolving role of women in society. This isn't just about work, especially because economic production before the invention of money is hard to disentangle from social functions. This book dives into the archaeological record to piece together the role of women in society and how technological changes shaped that role - moving from one of child rearing to incorporating other tasks that could be done in the home to eventually full fledged production of complex goods.

I particularly liked how this book draws from various sources, and the author even engages in different types of weaving herself to understand what would have been done in the past. This contrasts sharply with economists of today, who often eschew qualitative and experiential understanding of companies and work and instead focus only on numbers. Overall this is a quick, engaging read.