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| Ideal community? (source: http://lifeexaminations.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/golan-kibbutz_april-061.jpg) |
After discussing Kibbutzes and their relation to communism in our discussion section, I decided it would be worthwhile to dedicate a blog post to analyzing them for two reasons. First, because they're the only example we could come up with for a non-authoritarian, sustainable community that reflected communist ideals, and secondly, because I had very little background knowledge of kibbutzes and they seem very interesting. Communism is about equality through common ownership and working together, and kibbutzes embrace this to a great extent, but not perfectly.
One area where kibbutzes really embrace communist ideals is in the social ideology of communism - equal members living together and sharing everything. Children aren't raised exclusively by their parents, instead by different members of the community, and children do not live at home like other children would; they grow up in communal children's homes. Property is shared among those in the community, and social hierarchies are avoided. Women are not discriminated against, instead they share the same jobs as men, and men take up jobs traditionally reserved for women. So as far as these community ideals go, they seem to be well aligned with communism. There are no classes, everyone is equal, and everyone is sharing the property.
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| Workers of the World Unite? (source: Photo: Kluger Zoltan, 06/30/1940 G.P.O.) |
Can a communist society function? Even kibbutzes, the one example we identified as successful, seem to raise the issue of practicality. The idea of small scale commune/collective living seems practical, and there are many examples of it working, but larger scale economic endeavors like kibbutzes seem to still not provide a clear example of communist economics being workable. So as far as the experiment of communism goes, kibbutzes aren't a shining example of communist economic success. Maybe if the kibbutz crisis in the 80s had been avoided, then kibbutzes would still have continued to flourish under their old economic system, but that's not the way history played out, and kibbutzes fail to remain an example of successful communism in action.
Good points, John! When I lived in Israel, I lived on a kibbutz and travelled to other kibbutzim (because kibbutz is a Hebrew word, the plural is kibbutzim, not kibbutzes), and although they were very close to communism when most were formed, most have strayed far from it. When I spoke with the older members of Kibbutz Tzuba, where I lived, most wished that it still ran the way that it did when it was formed in 1948. The problem is, starting in the 80's, most of the grown children of of Tzuba ended up moving to bigger cities like Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, or cities in Europe or the US, in order to live in a capitalist society where they could be successful and benefit economically from their success. In order to keep people living in the kibbutz, the economic model had to change. This is not the only aspect of kibbutzim that has changed since Israel was granted statehood. Children now live with their own families and are raised by their parents, and many members of kibbutzim work outside of the kibbutz. The communist aspect of kibbutzim did work well in its prime, but it is incredibly hard to keep an aspect of one's community strong when the entire world operates in a different way, especially if that aspect is looked down upon by the entire world.
ReplyDeleteI believe that communist society's can function if it is small. I believe that if a small group of people who were committed to one another and had strong relationships were to come together, a communist society could be successful. Another factor of success of a communist society would be outside influence. If the individuals in the community are close to other societies and can see the successes of capitalism, then they might not be willing to live the communist lifestyle like before. Having groups of small communist communities in surrounding areas might be a solution to this problem.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this blog post, just as I enjoyed our rather brief discussion of it in section. I have some distant relatives who live in kibbutzes and they truly could not be happier. It truly is amazing how the whole thing just works. I don't think this supports the argument that communism can work, but it does show you how people can function in a similar type of environment.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting article about kibbutzim in Israel and how they are a model for what Karl Marx was trying to achieve through communism. I think that in these small societies they were able to be very successful and if it wasn't for that economic downturn and what Marissa pointed out, we would still see the original kibbutzim today. I think a kibbutz is a great society to give a try, but if it was tried in a large scale, like Russia for example, it would not be as successful as it was in the small societies of Israel.
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