THE KIBBUTZ AS SOCIAL INSTITUTION
Barkai, Haim
Kibbutzim are familiar landmarks in Israel's landscape. The roughly 230 kibbutzim that have been founded since 1910 have made an enormous impact on the ideology and politics of Zionism and...
...The advent of the kibbutz industrial revolution around the mid-1950s has had considerable bearing on this issue...
...Many if not most of these problems would rapidly disappear if industrialization were not permitted to expand beyond the present scale...
...These results obviously are not a matter of chance...
...The average kibbutz has a population of 400 and a membership of about 200—and only three kibbutzim have a population of over 1,000...
...This slight erosion of the principle of selflabor is the result of the expansion of kibbutz manufacturing enterprises...
...Their argument would be considerably strengthened if they were to suggest that clothing, footwear, and smoking should also be made "free...
...However, the secretariat, which is composed of the principal officeholders and also meets weekly, is the main decision-making organ...
...24 We had better state first what it cannot prove...
...Although thevariety of food offered at each meal is still limited, by now there is always a choice between at leasttwo main dishes...
...To support their case they refer to the fact that some items, such as basic toiletries, which were once rationed, are now "free" goods...
...To the traditionalists the substitution of personal for communal choice is the very feature that is objectionable...
...This difference in the nature of the supply functions means that the long-run shadow price of labor may differ from the short-run price...
...l By the late 1920s (1927) when existing kibbutzim were already more stable, the kibbutz population was about 2.5 percent of the total Jewish population...
...A reversal of thetrend would probably reduce the number of hired workers to a negligible figure, thereby halting the erosion of the self-labor principle once and for all...
...Productivity gains, which are impressive even by the high standards of the Israeli economy, ensured rapidly rising disposable income, which from the middle 1950s onward was high enough to approach European standards of affluence...
...At any given time a member's points ranking determines his housing standards and the composition and quality of the consumer durables put at his disposal...
...The individual kibbutzim are separate legal and economic entities, though they all belong to the kibbutz movement—technically, through membership in one of the three kibbutz federations, and they all identify ideologically and spiritually with the movement as such...
...Education, to each according to his intellectualpotential and his own desire, has not yet been extended to the realm of higher education...
...The poverty constraint, however, began to disappear in the late 1940s, and even more rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s...
...This maybe interpreted as an indicator of the universal acceptance of kibbutz rules on labor discipline which, of course, reflects the fact that membership is voluntary...
...The reformers maintain that the technique is fully consistent with the principle of equality, since the endowment would be handled on a per capita basis...
...Rotation, as a matter of principle, is an integral element of the kibbutz system of government, and almost everyone is expected sooner or later to serve in one capacity or another...
...The degree to which hired labor is employed in this branch is of an entirely different order of magnitude from that of other production and service branches: in 1969 over 50 percent of the workers in kibbutz manufacturing enterprises were employees, as compared to only 4-14 percent in farming and personal service branches respectively...
...The initial attempt at direct control gave way to a more indirect technique of decision-making and control...
...Itsflexibility of response to individual needs, and alsothe small size of the kibbutzim which implies lowstudent/teacher ratios is expensive and requires ahigher share of disposable income than the country's average...
...Each branch is run by a permanent team headed by a branch coordinator...
...The communal dining hall has consequently evolved as the focus, in every sense, of kibbutz life—a point underlined by the central location and architectural eminence of kibbutz dining halls...
...More concretely, in response to rapid technological change and the expected growth of the capital stock, on the one hand, and an expected small expansion of kibbutz population and labor force on the other, the long-run shadow price of labor is expected to rise...
...14 Of course, such other insurance and welfare-state items as maternity leave and the equivalent of full life insurance (both of which are ultimate goals of the welfare state) are, because of its very nature, part-and-parcel of the kibbutz way of life...
...These have been organized aslimited liability companies in which the other partners hold 50 percent or somewhat less of the equity...
...Since the establishment of a manufacturing enterprise also involves putting many eggs into one basket, the risks involved are much greater...
...8 Though the wage rate as such is not a determinant of the supply of kibbutz labor, per capitaincome is one of the factors that determine the size of membership and thus of the labor force...
...This rapid increase means that toward the end of the 1970s kibbutz living standards will be close to the present consumption levels of Western and Northern Europe...
...Outstanding differences in the standard of living of different kibbutzim, though technically feasible in view of the principle of autonomy, obviously cannot be accepted by a movement that has made equality one of its basic tenets...
...Respect and esteem for a good day's work and for success in entrepreneurial functions is an important factor in motivating individuals toward work and responsibility in the kibbutz...
...The roughly 230 kibbutzim that have been founded since 1910 have made an enormous impact on the ideology and politics of Zionism and on the evolving institutional and social structure of, first, Palestine and, then, Israel...
...In the longer run, though, its size does change—it has been rising slowly throughout the 1950s and 1960s...
...7 Institutional constraints on the size of land holdings apply not only to kibbutzim and in practice mean that the land endowment of a kibbutz is a given size...
...Yet it has shown that on the micro economic and microsocial levels a socialist form of organization is a viable proposition...
...How do the people in charge of a branch decide how much to produce, and on what basis do they determine the input combination—that is, the size of the various inputs to be used, such as labor, raw materials, and fixed equipment...
...The total kibbutz population has grown from about 500-600 in the early 1920s to close to 100,000 in the early 1970s, and was always a rather small fraction of the Jewish and a fortiori the total population...
...These items obviously belong in essence to the realm of the individual...
...This, of course, means that all the other components of consumption—housing and furniture, clothing and footwear, health and education, holidays and such sundries as cigarettes—should be distributed by means of a similar technique...
...Finally, how do these mesh with operations of the personal services sector...
...The first would include all the goods and services which would continue to be distributed on a "free" basis —such as food, maintenance of children, and education, medical care, cultural activities, retirement, etc...
...It was then the smallness of the allowance that necessarily limited variety and made rationing a satisfactory allocating device...
...THE KIBBUTZ AS SOCIAL INSTITUTION These tenets refer to the two sides of the kibbutz that make it an integrated social and economic whole...
...The size of the labor force in the short-run is also given...
...Expenditures on food were 25-30 percent in the 1960s, 35-40 percent in the 1940s, and probably about 50-60 percent in the 1930s and 1920s respectively...
...The allocation of housing is another interesting example of the intricate problems involved in applying equality in real life...
...The development and growth of the kibbutz accordingly has been an integral part of the process that reestablished a Jewish national entity and eventually the State of Israel...
...Thus, given the prices of all factors, including the shadow prices of factors which "belong" to the kibbutz and also the prices of products, each production branch is requested to follow a simple rule: it should produce a product mix and use a factor combination that maximizes the difference between sales proceeds and the alternative cost of factors inclusive of labor and land...
...Thus, size and the requirements imposed by techniques of industrial production may entail the substitution of a formal work discipline for the traditional informality that is ultimately based on self-discipline...
...Obviously, the bigger the manufacturing enterprise, the greater the problem of work discipline...
...It is always possible tochange the 8-hour milking shift (which is usual inIsrael), to a 12-hour milking shift (conventional inWestern Europe...
...HAIM BARKAI individual basis...
...Indeed, such training and opportunities of advancement are offered particularly to the younger generation of members...
...Since the output of 6 Consider, for example, the dairy in which labor, feeding stuff, the herd of cows, and the milkingparlor are used to produce milk (and meat...
...The introduction of the comprehensive budget would thus streamline the mechanism of kibbutz income distribution and arrange it into three "neat" categories, whose boundaries could be shifted to fit the needs...
...The permanent team shares responsibilities for the regular day-to-day running of the 2 The size of the permanent team in a manufacturing enterprise, which is by now one of severalbranches in many kibbutzim, may sometimes be larger...
...But although the economic incentive to engage more hired workers grew significantly in the later 1950s and in the 1960s in view of rapidly rising labor productivity and an accelerating pro cess of Industrialization, the kibbutz movement succeeded in preventing a further significant rise in the relative size of the hired-labor sector...
...Although differences must and do exist, rent controversy in the Soviet Union...
...to the growth rates of rural communities in industrial societies, which are usually negative, this is still a rapid growth rate...
...HAIM BARKAI vertical mobility than in nonkibbutz establishments...
...Retirement is expressed inthe reduction of working time, and is thus restrictedto the production side...
...The kibbutz abides by the principle of self labor, which means that hired labor should not be employed...
...Since manufacturing is rapidly becoming the major branch in the kibbutz economy, it is possible that there will develop much greater differences in performance and hence in per capita income than indicated by our data...
...Since the shortrun labor supply is a known quantity, it is evidently easier to reach an equilibrium solution for shorter periods...
...And the disfavor, with which shirking is viewed in the closely knit communities such as even the largest kibbutzim still are, is also a powerful sanction.a s Mean kibbutz population in the late 1960s was a little over 400, and 95 percent of all kibbutzim had a total population of 800 or less...
...It would be hard to imagine a movement of 100,000 people living in socialist communities within an industrial society that operates a market economy, in the absence of the "national" factor...
...Some members live in better, indeed often much better, apartments than others...
...Percapita income or even income per worker are, however, not identical with wages in a kibbutz...
...Notethat although the technology of production is givenfor the short run though not for the longer run, the equipment/labor ratio is not predeterminedeven for the short run...
...The "comprehensive" budget the reformers propose to introduce instead of the old "personal" budget would do away with categories and itemization...
...Thus the ideology of the kibbutz movement underlined the unity of •the twin ideas which were also practical tasks...
...The qualification added to Louis Blanc's famous aphorism is an expression of the scarcity constraint, which is always relevant and was very much to the fore in the heroic founding days of the 1920s, when real income was very low indeed and sometimes not much above starvation levels...
...Estimates based on per capita income and real consumption in the 1950s and 1960s support the view that interkibbutz inequality was small until the mid-1960s...
...The clothing and footwear budgets worked rather like the points systems, perfected during World War II, while such items as cigarettes were rationed outright...
...Whether this offers more than a formal escape from the dilemma is, of course, open to dispute...
...The scarcity condition in this case is not imposed by the conventional market constraint—pricebut is a quantity constraint...
...It is the movement which formally and informally influences a most important lever of kibbutz life—the inflow of manpower from the nonkibbutz environment...
...This has eased the massive shift into manufacturing, which has already taken place and will probably gather speed in the 1970s...
...As mentioned, the kibbutz production sector consists of a number of production units, most of which are various branches of farming run by small teams of permanent workers...
...Its main advantage, it is claimed, is its flexibility: it allows consumer choice for just those consumer goods in which personal taste counts most...
...Accordingly, each family settled on land has been provided with an equal endowment—equal in the sense that it is intended to provide the same per capita income, although it varies in composition according to the technical circumstances...
...The function of the branches as the elementary cells of the economic structure is underlined by the fact that they are distinct accounting units...
...Suppose that this price, which actually represents the productivity of labor (at the margin), is higher than the relevant market wage rates...
...These factors succeeded in undermining the ideological barrier that separated the kibbutz from the general labor market...
...Since practically every kibbutz settlement has started from scratch in or after 1921, and most settlements are not yet 25 years old, control of the real-resources endowment— the basic capital and land endowments— evidently contributed to equality...
...This position of eminence was reached even though each kibbutz is a rather small community, and the kibbutz movement as a whole has always been a minority phenomenon...
...The shadow price of kibbutz labor was low and this obviated any incentive to employ nonkibbutz labor...
...As production and distribution grew in magnitude and complexity, the kibbutzim were forced to give up the innocent belief in decision-making and direct control of every aspect of communal life by all members meeting in the general assembly...
...20 Since Israel is rapidly developing a diversified industrial economy, and since success in maintaining high productivity gains in farming means further reduction in labor input, the kibbutz must continue its course of industrialization if it is not to become a backwater...
...However, this was in the 1920s and early 1930s, when expenditure on clothing, footwear, and similar items was minimal owing to low incomes...
...A sketch of the kibbutz's structure and government may clarify how this intricate organism, guided by socialist principles, arranges production and distributes income...
...This suggestsat once that the loss of per capita income—the difference between the equilibrium level of (percapita) income when the principle is observed and the equilibrium level of income when it is not— offers the kibbutz a measure of the (minimum) cost of "self-labor...
...In terms of price relatives this suggests, to say the least, a gap between the shadow price of kibbutz labor and the market wage rates of unskilled and semiskilled farm and factory labor...
...And so by the early '60s the economic incentive to breach the self-labor principle had affected almost every kibbutz...
...There, because of the greater technical and financial intricacies involved, the immediate cost of rotation may seem prohibitive...
...Admitting the force of the argument that growing 'affluence allows for more variety and hence for more personal choice, they suggest extending the range of "free" items...
...This has been interpreted to mean that the means of production must be allocated on a per capita basis...
...This is now the accepted practice in most kibbutzim and will be so for a long time to come, unless the comprehensive budget is accepted...
...13 Food was undoubtedly the dominant item of expenditure in the 1920s and 1930s when it claimedabout two-thirds of total consumption expenditure...
...In summer, when the seasonal demand for labor is particularly high, it is filled by the part-time work of visiting youth groups and the 14-18-year-old kibbutz children...
...The kibbutz maintains equality in the distribution of real income...
...Assets that serve in production are operated by the community...
...in the early 1950s it was still more than half oftotal consumption expenditure...
...This device, the "personal budget," was similarly applied to footwear, cigarettes, and pocket money which was minimal, even by the standards of the period...
...26 In the running debate on kibbutz viability, which was at its height in the late 1920s and early 1930s, kibbutz opponents maintained that the absence of direct material motivation, the elimination of the budget constraint, hence the inevitable neglect of collective property, and finally red tape, mean that the kibbutz cannot survive as an economic entity...
...N (1971), pp...
...The financial difficulties of kibbutzim in those days gave prima facie support to those who believed andmaintained that the kibbutz was doomed to immediate failure...
...Industrialization KIBBUTZ MANUFACTURING had its modest beginnings in the early 1940s...
...Now if the labor supply is given by the size of the kibbutz membership, the corresponding shadow price of labor, deduced from the equilibrium conditions, reflects ideological constraints...
...Communal dining, a common practice in the 1920s, was initially introduced more in response to exogenous conditions than to ideological motivations...
...This brought 'about the system of communal child care, one of the most characteristic features of the kibbutz and one of its most interesting contributions to human experience...
...Two of the three 16 In the 1960s the "free" items came to 60-65 percent of total consumption expenditures...
...years, is required to satisfy three conditions simultaneously: it is to allow for differences in the tastes of individuals...
...It is also clear that the inevitable delay in the process of decision-making involved in democracy, which in practice means rule by committee, is more than compensated for by the purely economic advantages inherent in the kibbutz 26 The most important of these are probably economies of scale, the considerable built-in facilities for internal factor mobility, and the ease of access to training, which facilitates rapid improvement in the quality of the most important factor of production— human labor...
...Yet to suggest that this trend be stopped, or even to try to slow the pace of industrialization could well bring about the doom of the kibbutz movement...
...Structure and Organization IT is in the light of the kibbutz as a collective that these facts have particular interest...
...Relations with other entities, whether kibbutzim or not, are conducted on purely commercial terms...
...And what are the principles of coordination among the units that make up the production sector of the kibbutz...
...21 This debate was concerned with what was prima facie a practical problem—whether Ein Harod, established in 1921 by the Labor Brigade, should have complete financial independence or whether its current expenditures should be controlled by the national executive of the Labor Brigade...
...The inherently democratic character of the kibbutz is underlined by the fact that the general assembly—composed of the entire membership and meeting weekly—is the central deliberative organ and ultimate source of power...
...So far we know only what is not relevant to achieve motivation in the kibbutz...
...Many of theleading personalities who had been for centralization returned to the Soviet Union in 1925...
...Self-discipline sustained by ideology explains behavior on the level of the individual kibbutz member...
...This is, of course, the main force behind the all-out drive to establish manufacturing enterprises, which means in practice that kibbutzim have been opting in favor of further industrialization...
...Even smallscale manufacturing enterprises require at a minimum about 10-15 percent of the labor force at the disposal of an average-size kibbutz...
...The issue had been in the background since the mid-1940s, yet in the 1960s the much higher income levels, which have continued to rise rapidly, and changes in the value system of Israeli society have put them squarely on the agenda of the kibbutz movement...
...Nursery, kindergarten, and 12 years of primary and secondary school are providedfor all the children...
...One cannot expect this to be a fixed quantity...
...In personal services, which demand a considerable slice of the labor force, it set in motion an extensive respecification of services provided, far-reaching reorganization, and the substitution of more capitalIntensive techniques in their production...
...But health care isliterally unlimited and the kibbutz covers from itsown funds anything that is not covered by thisHistadrut plan...
...Since housing is a major component of the standard of living, and since equal distribution of housing services is impossible, allocative devices based on the principle of equality had to be devised...
...The ideological constraint on the size of interkibbutz inequality is reinforced by the members' potential interkibbutz mobility...
...When labor shortageforces a kibbutz to hire labor in order to maintain production at an existing plant or the possible lossof a promising venture suggests initially basing production on the hiring of some labor, this is usually considered a mere stopgap...
...Yet this does not apply to everyone...
...Kibbutzim have gained and expect to gain population and labor through natural increase and inflow and have been losing population and labor through outflow...
...This allows the kibbutz population to enjoy a living standard that is about equal to the average in Israel...
...The "men" coopted by the central authorities are usually highly trained and experienced, and are sent for periods of a year or more to help train manual and managerial personnel of younger and less experienced kibbutzim...
...It also means that the kibbutzim are in the upper third of the total population ranked by per capita consumption levels...
...It was the Ein Harod policy which won and set the pattern for the kibbutz movement as we know it today...
...15 It 14 Since no individual accounts are kept and membership entitles one to all goods and services offered by the community, drawing a pension in thetechnical sense of the term is, of course, alien to the kibbutz way of life...
...English forthcoming...
...The size issue arises because even a small-scale manufacturing unit requires a permanent labor force of about 15 and usually closer to 20 or 25 workers...
...If this is so, the kibbutz evidently can increase its total and hence its per capita material income by hiring labor...
...The common denominator of these three categories is the absence of a wage nexus between the kibbutz and the individuals within it...
...This led to the reconsideration of some of the traditional distribution techniques, in particular the personal budget system...
...Obviously, the greater the gap between the shadow price of labor and market wages, the greater the temptation to overcome the ideological barTHE KIBBUTZ AS SOCIAL INSTITUTION rier that separates the kibbutz production sector from the general labor market.'° In the 1920s, 1930s, and for most kibbutzim the 1940s, this was an academic question...
...The availability of alternative employment in other branches—the job-rotation that is practiced in the kibbutz as a major means of achieving social mobility and preventing the creation of an entrenched group of functionaries—is of course another escape valve for those with routine jobs...
...It still seems apt today...
...The general rule to be applied by production branches is obvious—size and composition of output-and-input combination should be set so as to maximize the differences between sales proceeds and (alternative) costs...
...The latter is obviously a powerful check on any excessive intersettlement divergences in living standards, even if these were not ruled out by ideological considerations...
...Thus, every child is given the opportunity to develop his 362 was the principle of equality between the sexes, requiring equal treatment in every type of work—from household jobs to work in the production branches—that led to the introduction of communal living quarters for the children...
...If in the past the kibbutz had failed to organize production efficiently, it would not have achieved its present success as a form of social organization...
...One of the main determinants of efficiency in the kibbutz, shown in terms of productivity levels and productivity gains, has been the ability to identify growth sectors and weed out losing lines, and in the ingenuity with which the production potential has been adapted to the more promising products...
...the kibbutz thus provides the most comprehensive old-age insurance feasible...
...Thus, even if a uniform analogous to the monastic habit were adopted by kibbutz members, a common pool would still run into such problems as size...
...Equality, with respect to this major component of the standard of living, is consequently not understood to mean equal consumer benefits at every point of time...
...This informal group normally includes from four to eight persons and not more than ten.2 The running of a branch is therefore not burdened with formalities...
...The branch coordinator, though he spends relatively more of his time on managerial functions, usually takes an active part in doing the job itself...
...THE KIBBUTZ AS SOCIAL INSTITUTION been the very essence of both the conceptual framework of the kibbutz and its practice...
...Thus production and service branches compete for scarce resources—for land, capital equipment, unskilled and skilled labor, and for entrepreneurial talent...
...By 1954 kibbutzim employed probably 2,500 hired workers, -about 8 percent of total kibbutz employment in those days...
...5 A formal decision to request that an individualleave a kibbutz—the strongest sanction possible— is rarely applied...
...The policy of the Jewish Agency's Settlement Department, which has been in charge of settlement activities throughout, has always been guided by the principle of equal treatment of all settlers...
...they never seem to have been serious...
...It is in essence a point system for calculating priority...
...By the end of the 1930s, kibbutzim had adopted a system whereby each person was entitled to a clothing basket composed of specified items, which allowed some choice within the prescribed limits...
...HAIM BARKAI 368 and 1960s data, which, a fortiori, had also prevailed in the preceding decades...
...Kibbutz manpower is at the disposal of the community...
...The kibbutz therefore has to accept the rules of the market economy for its outside relations...
...The nature of this problem may become clear if we specify the relevant variables and parameters more precisely...
...The land endowment of each kibbutz is a given quantity...
...The ratio fellrapidly in the later 1950s and the 1960s, and by the end of the 1960s it was about 30 percent...
...together with the equality of the initial resources endowment, it has helped to bring about and maintain the remarkable interkibbutz equality of living standards demonstrated by the 1950s 22 In the Moshavim (another form of Israeli cooperative settlement consisting of separate family farms), considerable differences in performance, and hence in per capita income, have appearedwithin a short time (5-10 years), although each family farm was initially endowed with the identical land and capital stock...
...Changes in number of feeding units andtype of machinery is another example of possiblesubstitution applicable even in the short run...
...The second category would include housing and furniture to be allocated, as in the past, on the basis of the point system...
...The study is financed by this Institute and the Twentieth Century Fund...
...This includes extracurricular facilities for children with artistic talents...
...Kibbutzim are familiar landmarks in Israel's landscape...
...Not many kibbutzim were established after 1951, and most kibbutzim by that time had passed into the phase of labor shortage...
...The severance of the link between the standard of living and occupation, which is one of the characteristics of the kibbutz, reduces an important source of the friction that impedes labor mobility in the nonkibbutz environment...
...Nonmaterial benefits that are also relevant in the nonkibbutz world are, however, not excluded...
...The optimum posi 9 A formal presentation of the short-run model ofthe kibbutz production sector, the analytical technique of deriving the optimum solution, and thenature of this solution in terms of factor allocation, output mix, and the corresponding shadow pricesof land and labor is given in Haim Barkai, "Rulesfor Operating the Kibbutz Production Sector," Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, vol...
...By the late 1940s, however, the situation was changing, and from the early 1950s on almost all kibbutzim in existence for, say, ten years, suffered labor shortages...
...6 More than the short-run and long-run factor combination has to be determined...
...The more individualistic attitude of the younger generation, bred in growing affluence and probably with a changing attitude toward ideology and a better understanding of the inevitable waste involved in every rationing system, may tilt the balance toward reform...
...Similarly, the work of other members of the team involves managerial and even entrepreneurial functions that require initiative and prepare them in due course for the top job in this or another branch...
...cialist economy—which it has not attempted to do...
...The same applies to medical care...
...The branch coordinator who heads the team often "emerges" from among its members...
...The community would then control only the size of the budget and specify the limits of the catchall category it is supposed to cover...
...This led to the development of a code for the allocation of housing and consumer durables based on what may be called the principle of "potential" equality...
...This applies both on the entrepreneurial and managerial level and on the more humble level of the man on the job...
...They pay the dues and are paidthe benefits coming to each member after the retirement age of 65...
...This has given rise to THE KIBBUTZ AS SOCIAL INSTITUTION a debate that may turn out to be significant for the future of the kibbutz...
...Yet an importantconsideration in favor of establishing such joint 360 HAIM BARKAI This "nonfailure" on the employment front, as kibbutz people would prefer to describe the containment of forces that were pushing up the share of hired workers in kibbutz employment, prevented the irrevocable erosion of the self-labor principle...
...the share of housing services was 20-25 percent, and the share of items that would be covered by the comprehensive budget was 20 percent...
...Degania's first decade was a period of trial and error, and membership and population were never more than about 20...
...The rapid progress of this process—which involved a major change in branch structure and corresponding changes in the way of doing things and in attitudes—is obviously one of the best indicators both of the spirit of enterprise and of the relative ease in which labor and other resources could be shifted to other branches...
...the 1950s and 1960s) underline the dynamics of this process...
...But compared This article makes use of data and quantitative analysis prepared for my study "The Growth Patterns of the Kibbutz Economy," currently in preparation at the Falk Institute of Economic Research in Israel...
...It also means that the social consensusand atmosphere forces people to leave if they cannot adapt themselves to the rules of the kibbutz...
...Therefore the identification of several generations of kibbutzniks with the kibbutz as idea and institution draws strongly on both national aspirations and socialist fulfillment...
...Hence, each new kibbutz that was established participated in the national endeavor through the conquest of the desert, at the same time creating a more just form of social organization and thereby proving that socialism can be not only preached but practiced...
...If seasonal work is required, the permanent staff is reinforced by temporary workers...
...This debate was strongly affected by the concurTHE KIBBUTZ AS SOCIAL INSTITUTION This, of course, means that the principles of collective production and equality of (real) income distribution apply only within each individual kibbutz...
...Manufacturing therefore could lead to the formation of a managerial elite, which would exclude members who are less able and talented in matters of business administration and leadership...
...An obvious line of escape lies in the latent promise that anyone who is reasonably capable can be trained to perform expert or managerial functions...
...But whereas food is at the "private" end of the consumption range, these other goods and services, which include the so-called welfare-state items, are at the "public" end of the range...
...Even a "large" branch in one of the larger settlements would rarely employ a team of more than, say, ten people...
...It would also ease some of the other problems which come to a head in manufacturing enterprises, such as identification with the workplace, the conflict between management and workers, etc...
...on the other hand, they imply the principles and thus set the rules for the distribution of real income among the individuals that make up the community...
...The consistency of the optimum output mix and input structure with ideology therefore depends on the application in practice of the self-labor principle...
...This barrier is obviously more easily maintained when there is little inducement to hire outside labor...
...Thus a greater variety in the composition of the consumption basket became a feasible proposition...
...Disguised unemployment was the rule rather than the exception for most kibbutzim before the World War II boom which, in Palestine, began in 1941...
...One of the more felicitous aspects of communal dining is the feasibility of realizing the principle of equality without overt rationing and its unsympathetic trappings, while allowing a limited though growing variety, which means some freedom of consumer's choice.12 As far as food is concerned, and this is a major item of the consumption basket, equality in the kibbutz is not only preached but also practiced?a Now, if this technique of distributing real income—collective consulnption in kibbutz parlance.-.-could be applied generally, it would be the optimum solution from the point of view of equality, on the one hand, and budgetary control, on 12 Variety was quite limited in the 1930s, while, inthe 1920s, when kibbutzim were as poor as churchmice, it was practically nonexistent...
...Since it has accepted the rules of a market economy, this social experiment can give no guidance on how to run a democratically controlled so 23 Interkibbutz taxation is progressive, but the sums involved, which are used to finance the central organization of the kibbutz federations, are too small to effect significant differences in income...
...These problems of size and numbers of workers needed, and the greater degree of specialization that they entail, have qualitative significance in the kibbutz context...
...Initially, kibbutzim did attempt to run the clothing department on a non intellectual and artistic potential without muchreference to budgetary constraints...
...Other advantages would be the elimination of the red tape required by personal budgeting, and of the personal friction inherent in a system of controls...
...The harmony of outlook could be severely affected if there were significant material differences between kibbutzim...
...The efficient running of the dairy therefore requires decisions on these matters for the short run, and on matters of technology for the long run...
...The crucial difference between the long-run and the short-run is the specification of the long-run supply function of labor...
...The sales proceeds of each branch thus depend on exogenous data—on market prices and on quantity produced—a decision variable...
...The permanent team consists of a group of experienced members who work in a branch for a fairly long period, say, several years...
...Even if we take 1927 as the base year instead of 1921, these figures imply an annual average growth rate of about 10 percent for the 45 years ending in 1971...
...Differential material benefits, a major means for motivating individual performance in the nonkibbutz world, are ruled out both by ideology and in practice...
...This, of course, means that kibbutz members know each other very well indeed...
...This comprehensive system of education offers even now moreyears of schooling than are required by law...
...Nevertheless, differences in the size and quality of available housing units, which reflect mainly time of construction, exclude equal distribution of housing services to adults at any point of time...
...Population growth slowed down considerably in the 1950s and 1960s, and then was close to only 1.5 percent...
...Manufacturing proper (as distinct from repair shops, which were always an integral element of the kibbutz production sector) means that, while most of the personnel is THE KIBBUTZ AS SOCIAL INSTITUTION employed on routine jobs, a small number of highly trained and talented personnel is required in managerial and entrepreneurial positions...
...Still, even there direct personal contacts are strong in comparison with nonkibbutz society...
...Public opinion and government therefore applied moral pressure on the kibbutzim-which were short of labor—to forgo, temporarily as it was then put, their principle of self-labor...
...A motion of censure put to the general assembly is also considered a very severe measure and rare...
...Its interesting feature is, of course, that in contrast to the Yugoslav variety of workers' management, it was never predesigned as a complicated set of rules and regulations...
...The annual number of such expulsions could probably be counted on the fingersof both hands for the entire movement...
...The size of the operation, which means the size of the output, also has to be set—and for the long run this applies both ways, to the contraction or even the phasing out of a branch altogether, as well as to its extension...
...They could be used to acquire goods and services from the kibbutz store, or might be converted instead into cash for off-kibbutz purchases...
...Modern techniques of analysis and data processing make an optimum solution along such lines not only conceptually meaningful but also feasible in practice...
...A continuous rise in real income allowed expenditures on these components of kibbutz consumption to grow more than proportionately, thus allowing for more variety and a wider consumers' choice...
...Yet this approach is also flexible enough to allow solutions for the longer run...
...Medical care, which is unlimited, is an obvious example, and so are retirement benefits...
...The rapid extension of manufacturing, the introduction of (partial) self-service in dining halls, and the tendency to shift from the local kibbutz school to the district school are obvious examples of such expected future trends...
...butzim are therefore inevitably caught in a dilemma: either to reject a promising line of manufacturing, or to engage hired outside labor...
...Each member would receive an equal endowment of money tokens, which sets the overall (annual) expenditure constraint...
...In the wake of mass immigration unemployment was a major problem, and it was most severe among new immigrants...
...Centralization was strongly supported by several of the leading personalities but was opposed by a majority of the members of Ein Harod...
...Progress on the consumption front would therefore imply the extension of the range of commodities which are supplied "free...
...It has never been questioned since.21 19 These are expressed quantitatively by comparatively high labor and capital productivity (at the margin), and by the annual 4-5 percent total productivity gain averaged over the last two decades...
...If we add to this the various branch coordinators and take duplication into account, the number of members involved in one or another of these tasks can reach 80-100 in a kibbutz of average size...
...i 11 Several of the larger enterprises originally fullyowned by kibbutzim are by now only partiallyowned by them...
...Finally, the general economic situation, particularly in the 1950s, also had some bearing on the issue...
...Since most kibbutzim venture into this line at a later stage of their development, the equal endowment rule no longer applies, and where it does, to a much smaller extent...
...Thus, although the kibbutz is justifiably identified as a socialist community, the presumption has always been that it must operate in a nonsocialist environment, as indeed it does...
...But it is not the quantitative aspect on which they rest their case...
...Though the principles of the collective do not permit the use of differential material benefits as work incentives, kibbutzim are among the more efficient production units in the country...
...Interkibbutz Equality ALTHOUGH WE HAVE occasionally referred to the kibbutz movement as a whole, we have up to now concentrated on a consideration of the workings of the individual kibbutz...
...It evolved, rather, in response to practical requirements and now has proved to be a practical proposition for 50 years...
...The case of clothing and footwear suggests the reason for the adoption of rationing rather than the technique of free distribution...
...Formally, however, the branch coordinator is nominated by the economic committee in the case of production branches, and by the relevant committee in the case of service branches...
...what are the rules that guide the operation of each production unit...
...The motivation of individuals to do their best at every production and service branch is evidently the sine qua non of kibbutz viability...
...Some of the assets that serve consumption are also operated and used on a communal basis...
...First and foremost, this involves a severance of the link between an individual's contribution to production and the real income from which he benefits...
...The continuous growth and success of the kibbutz in terms of accepted success indicators shows that, so far, this problem has been satisfactorily solved...
...24 This expression was used by Martin Buber when referring to the performance of the kibbutz movement in a lecture delivered in 1945...
...Child care and education from birth to the age of 18 also is a communal service...
...To carry out this principle is a tricky matter because of differences in location, natural conditions, and the variance of the most important production resource the human factor...
...Yet this fusion of Zionism and socialism has 25 We may note in passing the controversy, on the eve of the settlement of Ein Harod in 1921, about whether a kibbutz of 150 people is a viable proposition...
...An obvious way to abide by these not necessarily consistent conditions is to adopt a technique that supplies "free" goods and services to members and yet maintains overall budgetary control...
...18 The production line of course requires repetitive work, specialization, and stricter coordination, while the expertise demanded of technical and managerial personnel draws a much sharper dividing line and a psychological barrier between manual and managerial jobs...
...This would reduce the labor intensity of the operation and correspondingly the output...
...it does not apply to the elderly...
...Ever since the establishment of Degania, and particularly after 1921 when the idea of a large and growing kibbutz community came into being with the settling of Ein Harod, the Zionist idea of establishing a settlement and the socialist idea of building it as a collective were fused...
...The two major initial problems that arise when a manufacturing enterprise is set up in a kibbutz are size and division of labor...
...Clothing and footwear, cigarettes and more expensive toiletries, housing, furniture and (some) household equipment, and pocket money are allocated to individuals by means of different rationing techniques...
...Neither the fact that the comprehensive budget involves an equal per capita allowance nor that it would apply only to 15-20 percent of total consumption expenditure softens their rejection of the system...
...The National Insurance pension, of course, covers only a minor part of the cost of the kibbutz's own comprehensive scheme...
...Obviously, rules are required for operating its components and performance criteria in order to ensure optimal allocation of manpower and other resources among competing branches...
...This presumes that each kibbutz is economically a separate entity—and indeed, this is one of the most important principles of the Israeli collective movement, adopted after an acrimonious controversy back in 1922...
...Yetsince such an equilibrium setup is the result of the constraint on the supply of labor imposed bythe principle of self-labor, it is undoubtedly optimal since it ensures the highest per capita incomeconsistent with the ideological tenets...
...Operation of the Production Sector PRODUCTION and the provision of services are organized as separate units, or, in kibbutz parlance, "branches...
...This constraint on the actual size of the labor force is effective only as long as the ideological barrier against the employment of hired labor remains in force...
...This condition, however, applies neither to kibbutz labor nor land...
...But since the kibbutz was not conceived as a monastic order and has never been run as such, attention has been paid to individual taste, which is of considerable significance in regard to dress and footwear...
...Over the years, several control factors have helped maintain interkibbutz equality...
...Though the branch coordinator is officially responsible for management, future planning, etc., there is no need for 'a clear-cut separation between white-collar functions and manual work...
...This way of running the production sector is perhaps the best approximation to the 17 Seasonal work is handled by reinforcing the permanent team with kibbutz labor not permanently allocated to the branch...
...The traditionalists who oppose the introduction of the comprehensive budget do not agree that, as the reformers put it, the proposal to streamline income distribution has only technical significance...
...Some of its major problems therefore are the consequence of this fact—the hiredlabor issue being one of them, and the nature of interkibbutz relations may rapidly become another...
...In the past the share of the "free" category was significantly higher—close to 70 percent in the 1950s, and 75-80 percent in the 1940s and 1930s...
...After fusion with a group of pioneers who had come to Palestine before the War, it defined the establishment of large collective settlements as one of the tasks of the "workers' commonwealth" it hoped to establish...
...Similarly, kibbutzim participate inthe old-age insurance plan run by the National Insurance Institute...
...In turn, it goes without saying that neither socialism nor Zionism could have made kibbutzim a practical proposition but for the availability of a group of people with an appropriate educational background and thus capable of thinking in terms of the abstractions that are required to make a kibbutz tick...
...Land, buildings, equipment, and stocks are put at the disposal of the branches...
...The range of choice has beengrowing in the course of time, which in effect means that it has been growing with income...
...a more typical case is the five- or six-man team...
...Birth rates, and hence natural increase, also partly depend on these factors...
...The reformers who demand the adoption of the "comprehensive" budget maintain that the personal budget technique, which in essence constitutes physical rationing, is outdated and wasteful...
...It is self-discipline sustained by the socialist maxim "from each according to his ability," and by the concept of "human fulfillment" through work.4 These notions require of each individual the greatest effort for the good of the community, even though he cannot expect to be rewarded personally...
...This is less true in the handful of settlements with a population of 1,000 1,500...
...It should not come as a surprise that the women initiated and promoted the trend toward individual as against communal choice...
...Heterogeneity of thehuman factor is probably the most important reason for these rapidly growing differences in income levels...
...356 HAIM BARKAI The kibbutz expression "work attitude" conveys in a nutshell that self-discipline is expected to count most in this context...
...The analytical framework outlined above suggests the context in which economic forces could generate powerful pressures toward the hiring of outside labor...
...This point will be discussed later...
...How this has been done—and particularly what social and institutional setup ensures that the efforts of individuals will make the kibbutz tick—is probably the most interesting aspect of the matter...
...In the later 1960s there were 5,500-6,000 hired workers, 8-9 percent of the total kibbutz workforce...
...It usually also initiates the adoption of new techniques, which usually involves changes in equipment and the product mix...
...The upshot of the debate was the split of the Brigade—Ein Harod's decision in favor of absolute autonomy in financial matters left no other option...
...This view, from which theydeduced that it is everybody's duty to work, hasbeen strongly influenced by the Russian populistand revolutionary traditions from Kropotkin onward...
...Yet, though there is no formal charge for the use of labor and land to any of the branches, their use is not "free" to the kibbutz, and therefore not free to its branches...
...The larger perspective of the kibbutz as a whole, however, is another matter...
...The technique of free distribution has never been applied to the whole range of goods and services that make up the consumption basket...
...The latter carries a nominal rent, and as no wages are paid for kibbutz labor, prices for these two major inputs are not exogenous market parameters as is the case with the other inputs...
...Through this elaborate system of committees and managerial functions a significant part of the adult population has a responsible task of one sort or another...
...It is interpreted rather in a less rigid sense to mean equal rights on a given level of real consumption to everybody whose ranking reaches a specified level in terms of the point system...
...Whether the kibbutz movement will be able to interfere with the process by means of income redistribution is an open question, and its solution must be left to the future...
...The third category would include all those consumption items excluded from the first two categories, which would be covered by an annual comprehensive budget to be allocated on a per capita basis...
...The concept of Socialist Zionism in its purest form therefore meant first and foremost the establishment of a kibbutz in Palestine...
...THE KIBBUTZ AS SOCIAL INSTITUTION the other...
...The challenge facing the kibbutz in the 1970s is therefore to adapt its social framework to the requirements of industrial manufacturing without yielding its socialist principles...
...Annual per capita income and consumption growth rates of about 4-5 percent respectively (in The settling of Degania Aleph by a group of 10 people, who decided to run the settlement on semicollective principles in 1910, usually is identified as the formal founding of the kibbutz movement...
...Partnerships with nonkibbutz interests have beenestablished for several reasons...
...This way of distributing food is obviously compatible with the collective life...
...17 The small size of the permanent work team has hitherto made it possible to run these branches informally...
...Though the quantity constraints on labor and land complicate the formal specification of the kibbutz model, they are merely a technical complication which can be dealt with in analytical terms...
...This maximum net income condition is conceptually identical with the conventional rule for efficient production applied by a competitive firm...
...The traditionalists reject the comprehensive budget because they consider it to be a retreat from the principles of collective consumption...
...In practice, most kibbutzim in which the question arises permit theiryoung people to attend one of Israel's universitiesafter completing national service...
...22 The homogeneity of the human factor as between kibbutzim has proved one of the most important social characteristics of the movement...
...This, of course, suggests the adoption of policies for the phasing out of labor-intensive branches and operations, hence far-reaching changes in the branch mix of the production sector and a restructuring of the personal services sector to save labor-intensive operations...
...When the "temporary" hiring of labor turns into a more or lesspermanent feature, kibbutzim egged on by the executives of their federation look for a way out, which partnership with nonkibbutz interests seemsto offer...
...adapt living standards to real income...
...It is possible to deduce for each kibbutz the optimum solution for the size of its outputs and the allocation of inputs on the basis of information concerning the technical relationships in production and service branches, exogenous data on factor and product prices, institutionally specified demands for personal services and amenities, and on the basis of the quantity constraints on labor and land...
...Population and membership grew rapidly by any standard...
...Moreover, the availability of a small cadre of trained personnel at an early stage of establishing a manufacturing enterprise can make the difference between success and failure...
...Thus, in the 1920s, '30s, and in the '40s, as long as incomes were low, food and the welfare-state items, all of which are distributed free, swallowed up most of the consumption expenditure, leaving little for clothing and the other individual items of consumption...
...This team also suggests and studies more extensive development plans before they are submitted for discussion and approval to the relevant committees, the secretariat, and finally the general assembly...
...Industrialization may therefore have a significant effect on interkibbutz equality...
...Therefore, if efficiency in some lines of production requires plants engaging at least 40-50 workers per shift, even a kibbutz with a population of 800 would be hardpressed to supply the necessary labor...
...This problem of motivation is more easily raised than convincingly resolved...
...These categories would be identified by different distribution techniques...
...The Personal Budget Controversy THE KIBBUTZ obviously could not have survived as long as it has but for its success in solving the problem of running its production sector...
...THE KIBBUTZ AS SOCIAL INSTITUTION each kibbutz is small in relation to the size of the market, the product prices are given...
...This means that 40-50 percent of the members take part in running kibbutz affairs...
...The obvious inducement to members to build up a sizable wardrobe if there were no constraint at the individual level makes this impossible...
...The Principle of Equality THE SEVERANCE of the link between an individual's contribution to production and personal benefits is the key that translates into everyday reality the socialist principle of equality: "let each consume according to his needs within the means of the community...
...By 1970 it was about 3.6 percent, after reaching a peak of nearly 6 percent in the late 1930s...
...In practice this was the most important feature of the evolv ing pattern of the kibbutz in the 1960s...
...The several budgets were specified in physical .terms, which meant that they were kept in separate watertight compartments...
...It is of course still an open question whether these results depend on the still fairly small size of the typical kibbutz community.25 The facts should by now suggest even to skeptics that the substitution of a collective personality for the individual ego is not inconsistent with remarkable economic performance, whatever the standard of comparison...
...branch...
...Though the kibbutz attempts to carry socialism into effect on the microplane, its ideology and practice, which have ensured its viability in Israel, have always been intimately related to Zionism as an idea...
...In more than one sense the kibbutzim were the vanguard that continuously pushed on to the boundaries—geographically no less than conceptually...
...This is not to say that community disapproval, which is mainly informal, fulfills no function in maintaining work discipline . 5 Even informal disapproval affects behavior or may induce people who cannot adapt themselves to this self-imposed discipline to leave...
...Inflow and outflow depend probably on internal factors, such as expected living standards, and on exogenous factors such as size, the country of the members' origin before immigration, the state of the economy, and last but not least, the ideological ramifications of the political situation...
...HAIM BARKAI 358 tion, which specifies the shadow prices of land and of labor, simultaneously specifies the quantities of factors bought in the market, and how they and the kibbutz's own factors are allocated between the competing branches and the product mix...
...The employment of labor and the allocation of land to any production and service branch—given the full-employment situation—which has been a reality since 1940, inevitably presents an alternative cost in terms of the diversion of these resources from other existing or projected branches...
...366 ideal of workers' management...
...Kib 10 An equilibrium setup which involves a positivedifference between the shadow price of labor andmarket wages, and hence a lower than feasible percapita (material) income, is prima facie not optimal from the point of view of the kibbutz...
...By 1920 it was a going concern and thus a prototype of a collective community for the thousands of Jewish pioneers who immigrated to Palestine in the immediate aftermath of World War I. Several hundred of these young people—most of whom came from postrevolutionary Russia and were inspired by both Zionism and the vision of socialism—joined together in 1920 to form the Labor Brigade...
...The traditionalists could, of course, argue that the share of the relevant consumer goods has been growing rapidly and that therefore the present figures do not reflect the future...
...Yet this massive transition to manufacturing poses a major problem for the kibbutz in running its production sector...
...This isnow a hot subject in the kibbutz movement, so thatthings are in a state of flux...
...HAIM BARKAI major kibbutz federations so far have failed to adopt the proposal, and as yet it is applied only in a minority of kibbutzim...
...Yet whatever the determinants of the long-run supply of kibbutz (self) labor, a wage rate as such is not one of the determinants of its size at any point of time...
...It also generates waste, not only because communal and personal preferences may be inconsistent, but also because rationing induces people to exhaust their annual rations whatever their immediate needs...
...Consider, first, the problems faced by a production branch...
...The practice was soon restricted, though with some ideological misgivings, to work clothes and linens...
...Since in most kibbutzim children live in children's houses, the rule requiring similar housing conditions can easily be applied by allocating 'a similar amount of space to each family...
...and ensure equality...
...23 The Socialist Experiment in the National Context ONE MAY be tempted to ask, what does the success or rather the "nonfailure" of the kibbutz movement prove...
...The immediate cause of the renewed discussion was the suggestion, support for which has been gathering momentum, to scrap the personal budget technique of distributing the nonfood and non-welfarestate items of the consumption basket, and replace it by what has been called a "comprehensive" budget...
...The attempt to apply socialist principles in everyday practice within communities based on voluntary membership has led the kibbutzim, by means of an evolutionary process, to adopt and adapt a set of rules of behavior that may be summarized as follows: • All kibbutz property is owned in common —the legal title being held in the collective...
...Self-Labor in Principle and Practice AS WE have seen the equilibrium configuration of factor allocation and product mix of kibbutz production crucially depends on the size of its labor force...
...The extension of the modelto include the operations of the personal servicessector is conceptually straightforward...
...16 Yet despite the advantages that seem obvious to the outsider, this proposal has met with strong opposition...
...This solution involves setting "shadow" prices for land and for labor.9 These shadow prices represent the alternative cost of land and labor from the point of view of the kibbutz...
...There follows an obvious conflict between long-run considerations favoring rotation and short-run calculations of its immediate cost...
...Step-by-step, as the need arose, this led to the development of an elaborate network of offices, committees, and functions, which represents the machinery of the kibbutz as it is today...
...The efforts to stave off what might have been a fatal blow to the kibbutz as a form of social organization induced the rapid introduction of labor-saving techniques and the phasing out of labor-intensive lines in the production sector...
...They maintain that the pure model of collective consumption envisages free distribution of every commodity and service— and that a cash allowance should be given only as pocket money to be spent off the kibbutz...
...This informality, which allows a great deal of freedom to the individual, is in part inherent in some of the technical features of farming—for example, in the fact that the whole farm labor force is not concentrated under one roof...
...The Brigade, which was run on semicolIective principles, contracted with the Public Works Department to build several roads...
...Although it was not the only form of social organization adopted by the Jewish settlement movement that has built up Israel practically from scratch, the kibbutz was in the vanguard...
...It grew in strength during the 1950s, yet the pace of industrialization gathered momentum only in the 1960s, when the kibbutz movement really plunged into its industrial revolution...
...Otherwise everything is thesame...
...20 Employment in kibbutz manufacturing has grown by 65-70 percent since 1960 and by 250percent since 1950...
...The equilibrium solution which specifies the optimum factor allocation and product mix for the kibbutz also involves the determination of the shadow price of kibbutz labor...
...The detailed itemization imposed by the "personal" budget technique, which originally may have been reasonable, cannot cope with extensive variety and puts unnecessary limits upon the individual's freedom of choice...
...And this rank, one may note, is only to a very minor extent—via seniority— related to the potential (still not the actual) contribution to production...
...15 In almost all kibbutzim, children, defined as the 0-18 age group, live apart from their parents in the"children's house...
...The tokens 364 would be used for all the items previously covered by the personal budget...
...We may note that the needs concept is specified in terms of individual choice, so that the kibbutz technique of income distribution, as it has been evolving over 50 ventures has always been legitimation of the engagement of hired labor...
...The main and undoubtedly the most promising way in which the kibbutz movement attempts to attain interkibbutz equality is by means of a "manpower levy" imposed on the older and more prosperous settlements...
...Hence personal effort in a kibbutz depends ultimately on ideology and thus on the intellectual ability of members to understand, absorb, and act upon a complicated set of abstractions...
...Others are, however, distributed for personal use...
...The kibbutzinsures everyone with Kupat Holim, the Histadrut(labor federation) "sick fund...
...One may therefore ask, 4 The view that work is one of the more importantvalues of human life has been accepted by allshades of opinion among the forerunners of the collective movement before World War I and its immediate aftermath...
...Rationing could work efficiently, they maintain, only as long as communities were small, homogeneous in background and age, and as long as there was a limited choice...
...Collective consumption—which means the distribution of free goods and services so that rationing is not applied at the individual level—is in fact applied to the distribution of some other consumer goods and services...
...The settlement of Ein Harod in 1921, which was the first attempt to establish a collective consisting of more than 100 members, the founding of several other smaller collectives between 1918 and 1921, and Degania's reorganization as a full collective, suggest that the early '20s is a more reasonable date for the founding of the kibbutz movement...
...The crucial issue thus is whether equality, which is the basic premise of kibbutz life, can withstand the strain of industrial expansion, which is bound to run into increasing inequality of know-how and responsibility...
...The allocation of time for work, study, leisure, and the allocation of labor between alternative use in production or service branches are determined by the relevant community organs...
...This means that the kibbutz labor force per se should consist of members and candidates for membership, the older kibbutz children, and "temporaries...
...If the rule of maximizing this difference— defined as "net branch income"—is followed by every production unit, net kibbutz income will be the highest feasible under the given set of technological, market, and ideological constraints...
...The traditionalists therefore can suggest only the introduction of more flexibility in the clothing and footwear budget to allow for choice within a detailed list of similar items...
...281-96 (Hebrew...
...On the one hand, they set rules for running the production and service sectors in which kibbutz income is earned...
...On the cost side kibbutzim are also too small to affect input prices—the prices of raw materials, water, machinery—so that only the quantities of these inputs are variables whose determination is part of the problem...
...Yet it would be misleading to attempt an evaluation of the kibbutz merely as a socialist entity, thus measuring its success and failure only in terms of the principles of collective production and consumption...
...Yet this informality, with its large measure of individual freedom in doing the job, has to give way in manufacturing establishments...
...Yet this rotation among jobs and offices, which has probably contributed more than any other factor to the viability of the kibbutz as a model of democratic and equalitarian social organization, is much more difficult to realize in manufacturing...
...The latter alternative implied that the national executive would also have effective control of the economic activities of all the settlements and work groups belonging to the Brigade...
...The basic premises inherent in the democratic structure of the kibbutz probably provide in manufacturing enterprises, as in other branches, for greater 18 The fact that in some kibbutz manufacturing enterprises members are required to clock in and out—even though the procedure has no meaning in terms of material reward—indicates the direction in which things are moving...
...but under kibbutz conditions its application involves a peculiar problem related to the use of labor...
Vol. 19 • April 1972 • No. 2
