Economic Update: The Great American Purge

Host: Richard D. Wolff, Democracy at Work
Date: May 23, 2019

Episode Overview

In this compelling episode, Richard D. Wolff departs from his usual Economic Update format to deliver a focused, in-depth analysis of what he calls "The Great American Purge": the systematic suppression and destruction of the American left—communists, socialists, and labor unionists—after World War II. Wolff sets out to examine not only the historical events of this purge but also its profound political, cultural, and economic consequences, arguing powerfully that the marginalization of these progressive forces permanently altered the course of U.S. society and economy.

Main Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Pre-Purge Coalition and Its Achievements

(00:12 – 07:45)

• The Post-Depression Coalition:
  Wolff describes how communists, socialists, and union organizers formed a powerful coalition during the Great Depression, forcing President Franklin D. Roosevelt to implement historic reforms.

• Four Landmark New Deal Programs:

  • Social Security — Provided seniors a monthly check, revolutionizing financial security in old age.
  • Unemployment Compensation — First-time safety net for those losing jobs through no fault of their own.
  • Minimum Wage — "We owe people who work a decent minimum and it's unethical and immoral and unnecessary to deny that to them." (Richard D. Wolff, 06:50)
  • Government Job Programs — The federal government directly employed millions in useful work, from building parks to supporting the arts; an effort never repeated on such a scale.

• Funding the Reforms:
  These programs were funded by taxing corporations and the rich, a move that triggered fierce opposition from the business community.

2. The Strategic Political Backlash

(07:46 – 13:30)

• Post-WWII Retaliation:
  After Roosevelt’s death and WWII's end, the coalition’s power threatened entrenched business interests. The focus shifted from party competition to destroying the coalition itself.

• Targeting the Weakest Link:
  Communists were singled out first for demonization:

  "You look for and focus first on the weakest link among the groups that are making up the coalition. And they determined in 1945 that the weak link were the Communists, the Communist Party." (Richard D. Wolff, 11:40)

• Redefining American Heroes:
  War-time heroes and union leaders were suddenly vilified as Soviet agents.

  "They were converted into agents of a foreign power. The Soviet Union. Kind of remarkable... Suddenly they had been turned into archenemies." (12:24)

• Expanding the Purge:
  After the communists, socialists were conflated and targeted next, followed by aggressive weakening of the labor movement—shrinking unionization from roughly 33% to 10% of workers.

3. The Cultural and Educational Campaign

(13:31 – 23:50)

• Political and Cultural Chilling:
  The McCarthy era saw the criminalization, deportation, and public denunciation of leftists.

  "A lesson was drummed into the American people: don't have anything to do with people who are critical of capitalism, don't have anything to do with people who are socialist in one way or another..." (16:42)

• Suppression in Education:
  Teaching about socialism or even critical perspectives on capitalism was banished from schools and universities.

  "It basically removed from the learning process of most Americans critical ideas about the system you live in." (31:02)

• Hollywood Blacklist:
  The film industry, with government guidance, blacklisted leftwing artists—what Wolff calls "the Hollywood 10"—to reshape cultural narratives around heroism and industry.

4. The Taft-Hartley Act and Legal Assaults on Labor

(24:00 – 29:00)

• The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act:

  • Prohibited communists (and soon socialists) from union leadership.
  • Required unions to negotiate gains be extended to non-members, creating an incentive not to join, undermining unions.

  "The Taft Hartley law, in effect, created an incentive for workers not to join a union, not to pay the union dues, because they would get whatever the union won whether they did so or not. That's fundamentally unfair, and you know it and I know it, and the people then knew it." (25:40)

• Culminating in Labor's Decline:
  The law was just the start of many more to come and led to the near-total elimination of "big labor" as a counterforce to "big business."

5. Long-Term Economic and Political Consequences

(29:00 – 37:50)

• Erosion of Worker Power and Ideas:
  Without critical voices, Americans were taught that there were no credible alternatives to capitalism.

  "If you don't criticize capitalism in school, you prevent people from learning to think critically about their system. And that undercuts progress." (33:18)

• Policy Paralysis and Loss of Vision:
  Absence of a left resulted in:

  • The minimum wage losing value through inflation.
  • Disappearance of public jobs programs, even during crises like 2008.
  • Inability to question U.S. foreign policy or economic inequality.
  • "The impact was to weaken the labor movement, to weaken social criticism, to convert, for example, the Congress of the United States, the political scene, not to a debate between the people who appreciate and like capitalism on the one hand and those who are critical on the other. That'd be a healthy debate. No, no, no, no, no, no. None of that." (36:10)

• Transformation of Public Perception:
  Where capitalists were once "robber barons," they are now celebrated as "creative job creating entrepreneurs."

  "But the last 40 years has converted them into creative job creating entrepreneurs. Nice change of language. That reflects the purge of those who were critical." (37:16)

• Setting the Stage for Contemporary Politics:
  Wolff draws a direct line from the purge to modern inequality and the rise of politicians like Donald Trump.

  "...when the next crash came in 2008, there was no left left. The communists gone, the socialists gone, the labor movement a shadow. There was no pressure. So the government, Bush, Obama, Trump, bails out the big corporations all they want. And for the rest of us, nothing." (38:36)

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Historical Amnesia:
  "Killing off those leaderships, destroying the education of people in critical ways of thinking was very convenient. It made it possible for the next decades... to be times of rolling back the New Deal, which we did, we let the minimum wage rot." (35:18)

• On America's Shrinking Labor Movement:
  "Anyone in America today, and there are a few, who talks about an economy with big business on the one hand and big labor on the other, is either ignorant or lying in your face. Big business has gotten bigger and richer. Big labor, it's gone. There is no big labor." (29:00)

• On the Cost of the Purge:
  "That's the cost for us of the defeat of the left after World War II." (39:08)

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:10 – Introduction, historical context, and Roosevelt’s coalition
• 05:20 – Description of core New Deal achievements
• 11:40 – Business strategy: targeting the coalition’s “weakest link”
• 16:42 – Cultural purge and psychology of fear
• 24:00 – The Taft-Hartley Act explained and its impact on labor
• 29:00 – The decline of labor, suppression in schools and culture
• 31:02 – Economic consequences and stifling of critical thought
• 36:10 – Shift in U.S. politics to anti-critique consensus
• 38:36 – Lack of leftist response to 2008 crash
• 39:08 – Closing summary and lesson

Conclusion

Richard D. Wolff’s "The Great American Purge" is a sweeping evaluation of how a concerted political, legal, and cultural campaign wiped out left-wing influence in the U.S., reshaping the nation’s politics and economy for generations. Through a blend of narrative history and impassioned analysis, Wolff illuminates how the silencing of criticism led to deepening inequality, a weakened labor movement, and a constricted spectrum of political debate—costs that, in his view, Americans are still paying today.