Sen. Bernie Sanders once compared the experience of Vermont workers in the 1970s to that of black slaves.
Sanders, 78, reportedly said the plight Vermont workers faced was comparable to that of black slaves in 18th- and 19th-century United States, according to the Daily Beast.
“We believe, ultimately, that companies like Vermont Marble should be owned by the workers themselves and that workers — not a handful of owners — should be determining policy,” the future senator said in 1976. “If a worker at Vermont Marble has no say about who owns the company he works for and that major changes can take place without his knowledge and consent, how far have we really advanced from the days of slavery, when black people were sold to different owners without their consent?”
While he was the Liberty Union Party chairman in 1977, Sanders criticized the economic environment of his state, which faced declining industry and rising service-sector jobs. “Basically, today, Vermont workers remain slaves in many, many ways.”
Sanders reportedly lauded a worker-owned asbestos plant in Vermont as an emblem of what he wanted the U.S. economy to change into. “In the long run, what we are talking about is a peaceful revolution.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Sanders campaign but did not immediately receive a response.
A Sanders representative addressed the comments to the Daily Beast. The official noted that Sanders has called for the U.S. to “officially apologize for slavery” and has been an opponent to “modern-day slavery.”
The comparisons are not the first instance Sanders has used strong rhetoric to emphasize economic issues. In the 1970s, Sanders called for the nationalization of most major industries. “I favor the public ownership of utilities, banks, and major industries,” Sanders told the Burlington Free Press in 1976. In 1986, Sanders explained to Vermont Affairs he defines socialism as democracy. “If you believe in political democracy, if you believe in equality, you have to believe in economic democracy as well.”
The socialist senator also integrated these sentiments into some of his policy platforms. While he was running for political office in 1976 as a candidate of the Liberty Union Party, Sanders’s platform included calling for the Rockefeller family fortune to be seized to fund federal programs.
[Read more: 2020 Democrats tiptoe around fraught history with Bernie Sanders]
