Victor Perlo
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Victor Perlo (May 15, 1912 -- December 1, 1999) was a Marxist economist and a longtime member of the national committee of the Communist Party USA.
Born in East Elmhurst, New York, Perlo was the 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.
Perlo served in various New Deal government agencies from 1939 to 1947, where he was one of the group of economists who worked for the enactment and implementation of the Works Progress Administration jobs programs. During World War II, he served as a department head of the War Production Board and in the Office of Price Administration. He also worked briefly for the Brookings Institution.
After the war, Perlo became a target of McCarthyism, which left him denied academic employment in the U.S. and ended his government career. From the 1960s until his death, he was chief economist for the Communist Party USA. His major works include American Imperialism (1951), Empire of High Finance (1957), Economics of Racism I and II (1973 and 1996), and Superprofits and Crises (1988).pOSTHUMOUSLY, Ellen Perlo and sons edited the Columns of Victor Perlo, vol. 1 PEOPLE VS PROFITS: The Home Front and Vol. 2 PEOPLE VS PROFITS: The USA and the World, available from http://www.intpubnyc.com.
