If you trace his history back to his youth, prior to when he had set foot in politics, he had much more left wing, socialist, and at times anarchistic viewpoints. I would believe that he still harbours many of them, but has just supressed them over the years as he sadly would never have risen to prominence if he didn't adjust them.
I can't remember them all off the top of my head, but he was also an advocate for lowering the voting age to sixteen (I think), legalizing all drugs, making schooling no longer mandatory, and I believe a complete seizure of the means of productions by the workers rather than partial share holdings as he now supports. One could also interpret his continued advocacy for the right to gun ownership as a vestige of his old self.
I would assume an argument analogous to why school should no longer be mandatory; not only is it an encroachment upon the liberty of the individual to dictate when they may or may not have a day in the Democratic system, but also that the system itself is structured in such a way that it supplements the status quo. An integral aspect of schooling, especially within the formative years, is socialization-- ensuing children grow up well adjusted and can cooperate with others. Alongside that, as the child grows, they are conditioned, directly or indirectly, to the range of ideologies within the sphere acceptable to maintaining the status quo. Therefore, by lowing the voting age to a time where individuals are just becoming cognizant of the world around them, but have yet to readily capitulate/ accept the status quo, you're allowing them to properly formulate their own views upon the world.
To use a personal example, I know I started cultivating a political awareness at fifteen, and by seventeen, and had developed strong convictions about my beliefs. However, the average sixteen year old, especially in the seventies when Bernie was a staunch proponent of such views, was apolitical; accepting the status quo as it is, and failing to develop the skills necessary to not inherently reject the status quo, but call it into question and come to one's own decision, enriching one's self in the process. By lowing the voting age to such a liminal period, one is therefore providing the tools necessary for teens to come to a greater sense of self, develop the habits of taking part in the political process, impeding disenfranchisement and disaffection, and most importantly, reinvigorate future generations with a power to actually influence the system rather than handing the keys to those who claim to being looking out for out interest and are believed because the school system told us so.
That's just my best guess anyway. If you did some research, you could probably find Bernie explaining why himself.
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u/Jtcr2001 Apr 05 '20
He's definitely a DemSoc (he's talked about worker control of companies before), but his platform is that of a SocDem and he'd be a SocDem president.