#AcademicRunPlaylist - 4/26/25

I had a bit of fun before a long travel day, but at least the long drive/flight gave me time to listen to books for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein. Klein reviews the role of the Chicago School and other neoliberal acolytes in driving the privatization of public goods and functions for profit, particularly around wars. While this book might not give the most accurate/complete accounting of particular events (the role of Milton Friedman in Chile stands out as fairly embellished), its breadth helps demonstrate that for every success neoliberal backers can claim in specific countries/policies, there are numerous other examples where those exact same policies not only failed, but demonstrably harmed societies. Reading this in 2025 was depressing, as the ethical lapses of the GW Bush administration that Klein dissects (rightly) seem downright quaint compared to the current administration's bald faced corruption. Highly recommend https://tsd.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine.html

Last was "Conscience Incorporated" by Michael Posner. This book advocates for business's role in protecting human rights across their business, utilizing a number of cases to demonstrate how this can be done in practice and the challenges in doing so. Posner mostly advocates a voluntary, private approach here, although there is a chapter on the role of government. I found the conflation of value investing and ESG investing off putting (to be fair the investment community has done this as well), and the chapters on social media and technology more broadly can be skipped unless you need an introduction to the ethical issues in those areas. Still, the cases presented here are certainly useful to help build the case for substantive change https://nyupress.org/9781479825103/conscience-incorporated/