> Victor Perlo 1912-1999
>
>
> NEW YORK - Victor Perlo, among the world's preeminent Marxist economists and
> an unwavering advocate of socialism, died Dec. 1 at home in Croton-on-Hudson,
> New York.
>
> He was a member of the national committee of the Communist Party USA and the
> chair-emeritus of the Party's Economics Commission.
>
> Perlo was a prodigious writer, author of 13 books which have been translated
> into more than a dozen languages. He wrote numerous articles in economic and
> political journals and many pamphlets. His weekly column in the World,
> "People Before Profits" was one of the most widely read features in the
> paper.
>
> Perlo's major works include American Imperialism (1951), Empire of High
> Finance (1957), Economics of Racism I and II (1973 and 1996), Superprofits
> and Crises (1988). His wife, Ellen, was his close partner, editing his
> columns and books and designing the graphs and charts to accompany his
> writing.
>
> He is best known for his analyses of the political economy of United States
> capitalism, comparative economic systems, and the economics of racism in the
> United States. He contributed the concept of the "profits of control" to
> Marxist economic theory.
>
> Perlo's writing was striking for its thorough documentation and clarity. Yet
> beneath the painstaking scholarship was a passionate love of the working
> class and oppressed peoples and an equally intense hatred of the exploiters.
>
> In a recent World column headlined, "How rich is rich?" Perlo wrote of the
> Forbes Magazine list of the richest 400 Americans "headed, of course, by Bill
> Gates of Microsoft with a net worth of $85 billion ..." adding, "they are the
> decisive force behind the global aggressions of U.S. imperialism, the
> anti-labor practices and politics and the intensified racism polluting our
> lives."
>
> Following the publication of Economics of Racism II: The Roots of Inequality,
> USA," Perlo received the Myers Center Award for the Study of Human Rights in
> North America "for the outstanding work on intolerance in North America."
>
> The book is a gold mine of information proving that the monopoly banks and
> corporations squeeze enormous superprofits from the system of racist job
> discrimination. Perlo calculated that these extra profits rose from $56
> billion in 1947 to $197 billion in 1992. Perlo ended the book with a chapter
> on the Communist Party USA's "People's Economic Program" calling for full
> employment at decent wages, affirmative action to achieve full job equality,
> affordable housing, quality public education and universal health care.
>
> It was perhaps the widest and most influential of his books. The first
> edition in 1973 coincided with an upsurge in the struggle against racism and
> his book was used as a college text in many African American studies courses.
> It went into several editions.
>
> Perlo travelled several times to the Soviet Union and Cuba and wrote books
> and articles on the superiority of socialism in meeting the material and
> spiritual needs of the people.
>
> In 1977, he and Ellen toured the USSR for seven weeks covering 13,000
> kilometers and visiting dozens of factories, collective farms, and
> interviewing scores of Soviet people. Out of this expedition they co-authored
> Dynamic Stability: The Soviet Economy Today published by New World Paperbacks
> in 1980. The book greeted the steadily rising standard of living in the USSR
> and the heroic struggles of the Soviet people to build a new socialist
> society.
>
> Victor Perlo was born May 15, 1912 in East Elmhurst, New York, son of
> Russian-Americans who had both emigrated in their youth from Omsk in Siberia.
> He received a BA and MA in mathematics and statistics from Columbia
> University in 1933.
>
> It was the depths of the Great Depression and Perlo was already part of the
> movement fighting to win relief for the millions of unemployed. He joined the
> administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, serving in various New
> Deal government agencies from 1939 to 1947, where he was one of the group of
> economists known as "Harry Hopkins' bright young men."
>
> They worked for enactment and implementation of the WPA jobs program headed
> by Hopkins. They also helped push through unemployment compensation, the
> Wagner National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and Social
> Security. It was during these years in Washington that he married Ellen
> Menaker, whom he had known from his youth, when he visited her uncle's summer
> camp in Massachusetts.
>
> During World War II, he applied his formidable intellect to the defeat of
> Hitler fascism, serving as a department head of the War Production Board and
> in the Office of Price Administration. He also served a stint with the
> Brookings Institution, a prestigious economic think-tank in Washington.
>
> After World War II, he was a victim of the anti-Communist, anti-union
> McCarthy witch hunt that cost tens of thousands of progressive Americans
> their jobs. From 1947 until his death, he worked as an economic consultant
> and writer.
>
> Despite his international stature, he was denied permanent academic
> employment in the United States. He never compromised on his commitment to
> the working class and labor movements, to end racism, and for socialism. In
> addition to his research and writing, Perlo was active in his community for
> peace, civil rights and against police brutality.
>
> >From the 1960s until his death, he was chief economist for the Communist
> Party USA. His son, Art, now leads the Party's Economic Commission. Even as
> his health was failing, Perlo's passion for the struggle continued undimmed.
> He wrote a hardhitting report on U.S. imperialism for the Party's Ideological
> Conference in October. He dictated his weekly column to Ellen from his bed
> until just a few days before he died.
>
> His interests included tennis, mountain climbing, and chess. He was also a
> talented pianist.
>
> In addition to Ellen, he is survived by children Kathy, Stanley and Arthur
> and their families. A memorial meeting will be announced.
>
>
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