Newest ‘Squad’ Member Jamaal Bowman: Capitalism Is ‘Slavery by Another Name’

House Representative-elect and new “Squad” member Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) proclaimed Monday that capitalism is “slavery by another name.”

Bowman said in an interview with The Root:

I believe our current system of capitalism is slavery by another name. We’ve moved from physical chattel enslavement and physical racial segregation to a plantation economic system. One that keeps the majority of Americans unemployed, or underemployed and struggling just to survive, while the power elite continues to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few, and allow large corporations to pretty much run the world as multinational corporations.

“The pandemic has revealed it. With almost 300,000 dead from the pandemic, disproportionately black and brown, and Jeff Bezos is the first $200 billionaire,” he added. “In the next six years, he might become the first trillionaire. That’s slavery by another name. It’s a system that’s not working, so we need a new system.”

Bowman, a former principal, made headlines earlier December when he accused police of “terrorizing black and brown communities,” and called for a dramatic reduction of officers in “poor communities.”

Bowman defended the slogan “Defund the Police,” claiming it means “a dramatic reduction in the number of police in our poor communities and, particularly, our poor black and brown communities.”

“Historically, when our communities have needed jobs, they didn’t bring us jobs. They brought us police, and they created a system of mass incarceration,” he told CNN.

Only 5% of policing is focused on violent crime. The other 95% can be handled by other agencies. In some cities, 40% of the entire budget goes toward policing.

We have to do something different and not allow Republicans to flip a talking point on its head. pic.twitter.com/Mr9sSOp0wF

— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) December 3, 2020

Leading Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, have cautioned against “snappy” slogans such as Defund the Police, warning they aren’t as politically expedient as one may think.

“You lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done,” Obama recently explained.