Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff – Honoring May Day, 1886 and 2020

Date: April 30, 2020
Host: Richard D. Wolff, Democracy at Work

Episode Overview

This episode of Economic Update is devoted to the significance of May Day, tracing its historical roots in 19th-century Chicago and connecting its lessons and spirit to the working conditions and challenges of 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. Richard D. Wolff explores how May Day stands as a global symbol of workers’ struggle for better conditions, the successes and limitations of labor reforms, and why he believes the pandemic highlights the urgent need for systemic change toward economic democracy.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. May Day’s Origins and Its Meaning

• Historical context:
  • May Day began in Chicago, 1886, as a mass protest against "intolerable working conditions," with 10–12 hour workdays, six days a week.
  • The demand was for the eight-hour workday – now an assumed standard but, at the time, “had to be fought for by people in the streets” (01:42).
  • Employers and media heavily opposed workers’ demands, claiming reforms would destroy business and jobs—familiar rhetoric even today.
• Workers’ Mobilization:
  • Despite opposition and police violence, mass labor organizing achieved the eight-hour day, proving “working people had won something when they were mobilized and organized. Big lesson.” (05:30)

2. Parallels to 2020: Coronavirus and Working Conditions

• Unsafe work environments:
  • Covid-19 has made it “unsafe to go to a store, an office, a factory...where the coronavirus can spread” (07:06), yet pressure persists to return to work.
  • The same economic pressures that forced long hours in 1886—poverty, job insecurity—now force workers into unsafe conditions.
• Employer and Government Response:
  • Employers are failing to make workplaces safe (social distancing, testing, protective equipment, consistent cleaning).
  • “The employers who want you to go to work didn’t want to take their profits...to make the workplace safe, just like in 1886.” (12:13)
  • Government inaction compounds the problem: “The government’s supposed to come in and compensate...but they haven’t done that either.” (13:40)
• Contrast with Rational Solutions:
  • With 30 million unemployed and urgent public health needs, a rational society would “be getting done” the necessary mass hiring and safety measures (14:24).

3. Labor Organization and the Limits of Reform

• Fragmented pushback:
  • Some organizational response is emerging: rent strikes, calls for a general strike, Amazon worker actions.
  • Still, “we lack the existing organizations...to mobilize and organize and make the anger effective” and “a clear understanding of what has to be done.” (16:20)
• The Problem with Piecemeal Reform:
  • Even historic reforms (8-hour day, Social Security, minimum wage, unemployment compensation) “had to be fought for,” were resisted, and are constantly threatened or rolled back.
  • Employers “don’t stop by blocking the reform when we want it...even when it was won, the employers didn’t stop.” (24:59)
  • The gig economy, overtime, offshoring—ways capital circumvents and undermines previous gains for labor.
  • “Making reforms, improving, making capitalism less awful...doesn’t in the end solve the problem. And it never did.” (15:45)

4. The Need for System Change: Economic Democracy

• Conflict of Interest—Class Struggle:
  • Wolff emphasizes the “conflict of interest” or “class struggle” inherent in capitalism:
    “What was good for the worker...was not good for the employer. That’s called a conflict of interest.” (29:55)
  • Employers’ main concern is profit; worker well-being or workplace safety is a cost, not a goal.
• Systemic Critique:
  • Even after achieving reforms, so long as “the capitalist system concentrates wealth and power at the top, with every incentive as soon as they can to undo the reform,” workers remain vulnerable. (17:51)
• Democratizing the Economy:
  • The coronavirus crisis highlights the need for “an economic system that is democratized, that becomes democratic. And here's what it means – real simple...every workplace becomes democratically organized.” (38:40)
  • “If we all made the decisions that will determine whether we live or not, or we give a tiny group of people focused on profit that decision. And let me be as blunt with you as the situation demands...” (41:36)
• Vision for Worker Self-Management:
  • One worker, one vote—decisions made collectively; priorities would naturally balance profit and safety, not pit them against each other.
  • “Let the workers themselves run the enterprise. We’ll then be talking to ourselves, and we’ll cut a much better deal for us and our families than we have been able to do in this system so far.” (44:52)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the recurring resistance to reform:
  • “The mantra is always the same, but working people sometimes don’t listen. Working people sometimes are organized enough not only not to listen, but to say, ‘We won’t work unless the conditions are improved.’” (04:15)
• On the pressure to return to unsafe workplaces:
  • “We’re being told, go back to work, go back to work. And of course we want to, because we don't have a job... That's being used to get us back to work, just like in 1886.” (09:32)
• On the insufficient nature of reform:
  • “After you’ve won them, the employers figure out ways to undo them. They fight you before you get them and then they undo them after they lose and we win. There’s a lesson here. Making reforms...doesn’t in the end solve the problem.” (15:45)
• On the logic of capital:
  • “They keep costs low. Why? Because that makes the profit higher. You all know this, but we keep struggling to get a reform from the very people, employers, we the employees, struggle to get the employer to do what’s right by the majority.” (27:56)
• On democratizing decision-making:
  • “If the majority of people don’t think [the workplace is safe], that's got to count for something, or else all the notions of democracy in America go down the tube.” (40:05)
• On urgency for system change:
  • “It’s time, it’s overdue, to learn the lesson of May Day, to realize that what workers have celebrated around the world on May 1st remains our task. Let’s stop negotiating with somebody who blocks us and undoes what we win.” (44:00)

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |:----------:|:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:42 | May Day’s historical roots and Chicago 1886 events | | 04:15 | The employer and media response to workers’ demands | | 07:06 | Parallel between 1886 and covid-era working conditions | | 12:13 | Employers’ reluctance to make workplace safe akin to 1886 (profits vs. safety) | | 14:24 | “In a rational society” – mass mobilization for workplace safety and employment | | 15:45 | The root problem: reforms are always rolled back; need for deeper change | | 24:59 | Why employers constantly undermine reforms | | 29:55 | Fundamental class conflict between workers and employers | | 38:40 | Call for democratizing the workplace—explaining a worker-run economy | | 41:36 | The stakes: who makes life-and-death economic decisions—workers or the profit-driven minority? | | 44:00 | Urgent lesson from May Day: “Let the workers themselves run the enterprise” | | 44:52 | Episode conclusion: vision for the future |

Tone & Style Notes

Richard Wolff’s delivery is direct, critical, and heavily illustrative—using historical context, vivid comparisons, and rhetorical questions to challenge listeners. He balances detailed economic explanations with passionate advocacy for systemic change, consistently highlighting the agency of workers and the structural limitations of capitalism.

Summary Takeaway

This episode connects the legacy of May Day—workers organizing for fundamental rights and tolerable conditions—with the current crisis faced by workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Wolff warns that while reform is necessary, the real lesson of history is its insufficiency. As long as workplaces remain governed by profit-centered hierarchies, workers’ gains will always be at risk. The episode ultimately calls for economic democracy, where workers, not owners or boards, control the decisions that most affect their lives—a radical but, Wolff argues, practical and overdue extension of the core lessons of May Day.