Animal Farm in Galilee
Perhaps the most benign and certainly one of the most intense, forms of collectivism in the past century, the Israeli kibbutz, seems to be breathing its last. I say benign because kibbutzniks have always been free to leave their kibbutz, a course that may not have been actionable until the 1948 war establishing Israel pushed back the sea of hostility that surrounded most kibbutzim up until that time.
An article in the Christian Science Monitor for March 1 reports, however, that the kibbutz movement has been suffering not only the loss of individual members, but lately also of entire kibbutzim as their members vote to "privatize." The article indicates that education and old-age pensions will remain collectivized in at least some cases, so that vestiges of the old institutions will remain, as they do even in places like the United States that lack collectivism (at least after the second year of the Plymouth Colony) in their histories.
Comments (5)
martian koolaid
I have a great documentary put out by PBS called Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism. In it, they spend about 30 minutes on the kibbutzim. I highly recommend it. You always hear Marxists complain that the Soviet Union was a perversion of Socialism. Well, I like to use the kibbutzim as an example of why Socialism doesn't work in a non-authoritarian system either.
Published: February 28, 2007 6:29 PM
anon
martian koolaid, please email me: aynrandism at yahoo .com
Thanks
Published: February 28, 2007 10:38 PM
Bogdan Enache
On the same subject, The Guardian in Britain reports that even the oldstes kibbutz, Degania, chose privatisation.
Published: March 1, 2007 8:45 AM
Lisa Casanova
"Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism" is a great book by Joshua Muravchik. I didn't know it was also a documentary, but I highly recommend the book to anyone.
Published: March 1, 2007 11:23 PM
Black Bloke
You can probably find the torrent for the Muravchik documentary in the usual places.
Published: March 2, 2007 5:20 PM