Dismantling Education Is the U.S. Empire Digging Its Own Grave w/ Prof. Wolff
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The U.S. Supreme Court allowed Trump’s evisceration of the Department of Education this week through mass layoffs. Fellowships and sponsorships to fund student research are getting cut while student debt is growing. Professor Richard Wolff breaks down the potential impacts on the U.S. economy and society, the history of the federal education system in the U.S., and the root causes of Trump’s attacks on education.
Professor Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. You can find his work at rdwolff.com.
Join the The Socialist Program community at https://www.patreon.com/TheSocialistProgram to get exclusive content and help keep this show on the air.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The United States Supreme Court has given the go-ahead to allow Donald Trump in the White House to dismantle the Department of Education through mass layoffs. |
| 0:13.0 | We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago, |
| 0:22.6 | but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. We are excited to have Professor Richard Wolf join us again for our regular weekly segment, where |
| 0:55.1 | we talk about the biggest stories related to the economy, the state of the working class and the |
| 0:59.5 | crimes of big business. I'm your host, Brian Becker. The Socialist Program brings you content |
| 1:05.2 | several days a week. Thanks to the support of our patrons at patreon.com forward slash the socialist program. |
| 1:13.5 | We appreciate all of your support and encourage you if you're not yet to become a patron today. |
| 1:20.4 | Richard Wolfe, welcome back to our show, a lot to talk about, as always. |
| 1:25.6 | The Supreme Court, the conservative six-person majority, has given |
| 1:30.2 | without explanation, which is not that unusual for these kind of rulings. The go-ahead for the |
| 1:36.1 | de facto elimination of the Department of Education, this has been a priority item for the far right |
| 1:44.0 | in America for a long time. |
| 1:46.4 | The basic notion is the Department of Education is fueling the socialist slash communist slash |
| 1:53.1 | Marxist takeover of the United States, doing all kinds of terrible things like promoting equality, |
| 2:03.1 | promoting equality between black and white people, trying to overcome the legacy of racism or misogyny. Anyway, what's your take? |
| 2:10.2 | Well, for me, and I don't mean to be singing the same song too many times, but you ask the question, I've got to give you the answer. |
| 2:21.2 | This is the symptom, as so many of the topics we discuss these days are symptoms of a declining empire and a declining economic system. |
| 2:34.1 | It is a truism around the world in every country that the future of the world economy |
| 2:43.3 | depends above all on technological progress as we go from, for example, fossil fuels to electric automobiles, |
| 2:55.4 | as we go from one kind of transportation to another, from one kind of medical care to a more |
| 3:04.7 | advanced, more capable medical care. |
| 3:08.9 | We need trained, educated people. |
... |
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