Every­one knows Ben & Jerry’s, the ice cream com­pa­ny, but far few­er know Ben and Jer­ry, the men behind the com­pa­ny. Ben Cohen and Jer­ry Green­field are not only busi­ness­men but pas­sion­ate activists deeply invest­ed in a range of social and polit­i­cal issues. For years, they used their com­pa­ny to push for pro­gres­sive caus­es, advo­cat­ing wage hikes, fight­ing for envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice and embrac­ing the LGBT cause.

"Until we get money out of politics, we’re really not going to be able to solve the other problems."

Now, Cohen and Green­field are throw­ing their weight behind a can­di­date who embod­ies their pro­gres­sive val­ues, Bernie Sanders. They recent­ly spoke with In These Times about their sup­port for Bernie, the busi­ness community’s role in social change and a host of oth­er activist issues.

You two are ardent sup­port­ers of Bernie Sanders’ Pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. What real­ly draws you to him?

JER­RY: Ben and I have been con­stituents of Bernie’s for over 40 years here in Ver­mont. We saw him as May­or of Burling­ton, and then he was also our con­gressper­son, and now he’s our Sen­a­tor. Bernie has been tire­less and unwa­ver­ing in sup­port of peo­ple who typ­i­cal­ly don’t have a voice – work­ing fam­i­lies, senior cit­i­zens, vet­er­ans, stu­dents. He is the only pres­i­den­tial can­di­date who is will­ing to talk about how the polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sys­tem is rigged for the ben­e­fit of the super-wealthy and corporations.

BEN: He’s final­ly a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date we’re vot­ing for! Usu­al­ly in pol­i­tics, you’re vot­ing for the less­er of two evils. This is final­ly a can­di­date who rep­re­sents the best of our aspi­ra­tions and he under­stands that it’s going to take a real move­ment in order to change the cor­rupt polit­i­cal sys­tem that’s in place.

JER­RY: Bernie is not for sale. He doesn’t take any mon­ey from Wall Street. He doesn’t take mon­ey from the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try. He doesn’t take mon­ey from the fos­sil fuel indus­try. All his con­tri­bu­tions are from indi­vid­u­als — the aver­age amount is 27 dol­lars. He is behold­en only to the peo­ple of this coun­try, not to any spe­cial interests.

Do you see any con­nec­tions between your sup­port for Bernie Sanders and your ice cream company?

BEN: Dur­ing the time when Jer­ry and I were run­ning the ice cream com­pa­ny, we rec­og­nized the very pow­er­ful role that busi­ness has in our soci­ety, and in our polit­i­cal sys­tem, and we were try­ing to use that pow­er as a force for pro­gres­sive social change. All the stuff we were try­ing to do at Ben & Jerry’s as a busi­ness are the very same things that Bernie is try­ing to do: to help those that are oppressed eco­nom­i­cal­ly and socially.

JER­RY: Ben & Jerry’s as a com­pa­ny doesn’t sup­port any can­di­date. But Ben and I are thrilled to per­son­al­ly sup­port Bernie. We are sup­port­ing him as loud­ly and as enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly as you pos­si­bly can.

Ben, you found­ed the orga­ni­za­tion The Stam­pede to help get mon­ey out of pol­i­tics. You guys have a unique approach to this issue, stamp­ing cur­ren­cy with slo­gans like ​“Not to be used for buy­ing elec­tions” — can you speak about that?

BEN: I got very involved in this issue of get­ting mon­ey out of pol­i­tics because it is the root cause of most of the prob­lems with our coun­try. It’s the rea­son why we have an ener­gy pol­i­cy that doesn’t make any sense. It’s the rea­son why we can’t pass decent envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tion. It’s the rea­son why we can’t pass uni­ver­sal health­care. It’s the rea­son why we’re still buy­ing Cold War-era weapons for the Pen­ta­gon. It’s the rea­son why stu­dent debt is so ridicu­lous­ly high and stu­dents can’t get decent inter­est rates. It’s the rea­son why big phar­ma is screw­ing us all.

I got involved in this cam­paign to get mon­ey out of pol­i­tics because it’s kind of job one. Until we get mon­ey out of pol­i­tics, we’re real­ly not going to be able to solve the oth­er prob­lems. A recog­ni­tion of that is the rea­son why some of the major envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions like Green­peace and Sier­ra Club recent­ly called the Democ­ra­cy Ini­tia­tive to focus on get­ting mon­ey out of pol­i­tics. I’ve real­ized that we’re not going to be able to get mon­ey out of pol­i­tics until there’s a huge move­ment sup­port­ing that, kind of like the move­ment that Bernie is catalyzing.

The tac­tic of stamp­ing mon­ey with mes­sages talk­ing about get­ting mon­ey out of pol­i­tics allows those mil­lions of Amer­i­cans who under­stand that this is the major prob­lem fac­ing our coun­try to make their voice heard in a way that’s con­stant, because mon­ey stays in cir­cu­la­tion for about five years after it gets stamped. As more peo­ple join the move­ment — and there’s about a thou­sand peo­ple join­ing each week — it builds on the peo­ple before them. It’s a protest and a very major demon­stra­tion to get rid of this sys­tem of legal­ized bribery that we have today.

Both of you have also tak­en a pro­gres­sive stance on wages in the past, with Ben & Jerry’s at one time hav­ing a pol­i­cy stat­ing that no employee’s rate of pay could be more than five times that of entry-lev­el employ­ees. What do you think of the state of wages in Amer­i­ca right now, and what are some pos­si­ble solu­tions to this issue?

JER­RY: I think the min­i­mum wage is obscene­ly low. It is absolute­ly impos­si­ble to live on the min­i­mum wage. It’s a ter­ri­ble sit­u­a­tion when you can be work­ing 40 hours a week in the Unit­ed States, the rich­est coun­try in the world, and you’re still liv­ing in poverty.

BEN: It also cre­ates a sit­u­a­tion where the tax­pay­ers are sub­si­diz­ing these cor­po­ra­tions that are pay­ing min­i­mum wage. Peo­ple are still in pover­ty, and you’re sub­si­diz­ing food stamps and Med­ic­aid and rent assis­tance — the whole bit.

What are the ori­gins of your social activism?

BEN: The basic Amer­i­can val­ues of jus­tice and equal­i­ty. You go to school and you hear that the big thing about Amer­i­ca is that we’re all equal, and then you get out into the world and you real­ize, well, that’s not the case. A lot of peo­ple are get­ting screwed by a sys­tem that is designed to screw them. You can either accept that or you can go around com­plain­ing about it or you can do your best to change it. I think Jer­ry and I feel best when we’re work­ing to change it.

JER­RY: I think the big thing for me was col­lege. I start­ed col­lege in 1969 and there was a lot of social activism and social move­ments going on the. There was the Viet­nam War, the shoot­ings at Kent State, a very active civ­il rights move­ment and women’s move­ment. I was exposed to a lot of that when I first went away to col­lege and it made me under­stand that you can either be a spec­ta­tor or you can be a participant.

What respon­si­bil­i­ties do you feel that the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty has to address eco­nom­ic and social problems?

JER­RY: Busi­ness, as has been men­tioned, has an enor­mous influ­ence on the coun­try and on the soci­ety at large. It has enor­mous influ­ence on elec­tions through cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions. It con­trols leg­is­la­tion through lob­by­ing. It con­trols all the main­stream media through own­er­ship. It has a huge impact on peo­ple both as employ­ees and as con­sumers. It can use that influ­ence for its own self-inter­est, or it can use it for the com­mon good. That real­ly is the respon­si­bil­i­ty that busi­ness has.

How has the busi­ness community’s response to these issues changed over the years, if at all? Are they more engaged, less engaged?

JER­RY: I think there are a lot of entre­pre­neur­ial com­pa­nies that are much more engaged, where­as the larg­er multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions are fol­low­ing when they are pushed to fol­low — gen­er­al­ly by their consumers.

A lot of peo­ple wor­ry that Bernie’s pro­posed polit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion is unlike­ly to come about this elec­tion cycle. Would he still be an effec­tive pres­i­dent, in your view, even with­out the back­ing of such a nation­wide movement?

JER­RY: I think Bernie will be at least as effec­tive as any­one else who gets elect­ed. There is grid­lock in Wash­ing­ton. For any­one who is con­cerned that Bernie won’t be effec­tive once he gets elect­ed, well he has the best chance of all because he has such a strong fol­low­ing. No oth­er can­di­date has near­ly the pas­sion and sup­port that Bernie does.

BEN: Bernie is the first per­son to say that if he gets elect­ed Pres­i­dent but there is not this huge move­ment of peo­ple behind him help­ing to shift the way our coun­try works, there’s real­ly not going to be much that he can do. All those peo­ple that are work­ing for him now, that are inspired by him now, that are donat­ing to him and vot­ing for him, need to keep work­ing with him once he gets elect­ed. The real­i­ty is that Con­gress is essen­tial­ly bought and paid for by cor­po­ra­tions and the ultra-wealthy, and Bernie’s can­di­da­cy is final­ly a chance to over­come that, but it’s going to take a whole lot of work by a whole lot of people.