Sociology of the Kibbutz

Ernest Krausz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000159868
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Rural Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This is the second volume of the publication series of the Israeli Sociological Society, whose object is to identify and clarify the major themes that occupy social research in Israel today. Studies of Israeli Society gathers together the best of Israeli social science investigation, which was previously scattered in a large variety of international jour-nals. Each book in the series is in-troduced by integrative essays.

The contents of volume two focus on the sociology of a unique Israeli social institution—the kibbutz. Kib-butz society constitutes an impor-tant laboratory for the investigation of a variety of problems that have been of perennial concern to the social sciences. Topics in this volume include relevant contem-porary issues such as the dynamics of social stratification in a "classless" society, the function and status of the family in a revolutionary society, relations between generations, industrializa-tion in advanced rural communities, and collective economies versus the outside world. The questions of the concept and development of the kib-butz, social differentiation and socialization, and work and produc-tion within the kibbutz possess a significance far beyond their im-mediate social context. Does the kibbutz offer a model for an alter-native, communal lifestyle for the modern world? How has the kibbutz changed over the past decadeswithin the context of a rapidly modernizing Israeli society?

Emphasizing the "nonfailure" of the kibbutz experiment and con-trasting it with many socialist, cooperative, and communal ex-periments that clearly did fail, Martin Buber, in his analysis, attributes this success to the kib-but/'s undogmatic character, its ability to adapt structures and in-stitutions to changing conditions, while preserving its essential values and ideals.

This volume presents an excellent review of the social research under-taken on the kibbutz in the past decades, and provides an introduc-tion to the growing scientific literature on the kibbutz.

Contributors: Melford E. Spiro, Menachem Rosner, Martin Buber, Joseph Ben-David, Daniel Katz, Naftali Golomb, Erik Cohen, Arye Fishman, Michael Saltman, S.N. Eisenstadt, Eva Rosenfeld, Amitai Etzioni, Ephraim Yuchtman, Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Nissim Cohen, Yonina Talmon-Garber, Joseph Shepher, Lionel Tiger, Edward C. Devereux, Reuben Kahane, Ivan Vallier, David Barkin, John W. Bennet, Yehuda Don, Uri Leviatan, Eliette Orchan, Shimon Shur and David Glanz.

WORK AND PRODUCTION

Structural Differentiation, Production Imperatives, and Communal Norms: The Kibbutz in Crisis

Ivan Vallier

ABSTRACT

This paper is a multi-level explanation of the “kibbutz crisis.” Due to widespread structural differentiation in Israel since 1948 the kibbutzim, as a group of concrete collectivities, have been “specialized” relative to the adaptive problem and are now primarily units of the economy. Pressures are placed on the kibbutzim to subordinate communal moral-integrative norms to rational criteria and production effectiveness. The diverse repercussions of this dilemma are described and analyzed in kibbutz Mayeem Kareem.

INTRODUCTION

The societal-subsystem relationship, a major point of articulation between macroscopic social processes and concrete systems, is a promising but relatively undeveloped area of sociological inquiry. This paper deals with one such relationship, the Israeli society and the agricultural communes (kibbutzim.) The focus is on an empirical pattern of internal difficulties that presently characterizes these communes, frequently referred to as the “kibbutz crisis”, and takes into account two levels of social structure: a level between the kibbutzim and the wider society and a level between one kibbutz and its several subsystems. The basic hypothesis underlying the analysis is that the “kibbutz crisis” is intimately related to the processes of structural differentiation and functional specialization occurring in all spheres of the society. The kibbutzim, very much involved in these changes, have been rapidly stripped of certain key functions that tended to promote their integration and viability. The vigorous moves of the new state toward economic stability, political unity, and social progress have pushed the kibbutzim into a primary production role and placed on them the burden of maximizing production outputs. This specialized instrumental role in a rapidly industrializing society demands internal adjustments that are incongruent with the communalsolidary norms that dominate role-relationships in the kibbutz community. The consequences of this incongruence between an instrumental position in the society and the unique communal norms are serious internal strains.

Several questions point up the problem of the paper: How has the kibbutzim’s position been altered? What are the consequences of placing a communal-type system in a conspicuously important production role? And, how do required adjustments in kibbutz norms affect other processes and relationships in the communal system? The answers attempted hinge on a clear understanding of the historical role of the kibbutzim, the sociological features of the kibbutz, and the ways in which these features relate to the operating requirements of an effective production enterprise.

THE SOCIOLOGICAL FEATURES OF THE KIBBUTZ

The kibbutz is a unique small-scale¹ system dominated by the values of fraternity and equality. The fraternal, horizontal emphasis encourages close, informal relationships. The equality standard discourages hierarchy and privilege, thereby reducing vertical social differentiation. The key institutional patterns (collective property, cooperative labor, shared distribution, direct democracy, communal dining, collective nurseries, and mutual responsibility) articulate the central values with the exigencies of daily life. Solidarity and informality are the expected bases of member-member relationships.

The kibbutz’s way of life is comprehensive for the individual. All of his social relationships (except for occasional trips to the city) are consummated with others who occupy the same formal status position: member-comrade or member-equal. Spiro refers to the kibbutz as a gemeinschaft.² It is a system viewed by the members as morally right, therefore a set of institutional arrangements valued as an end in itself.

Structurally these systems are highly interdependent.³ Small modifications in any key relational area have important repercussions throughout the total system. Consequently the kibbutz’s normative base restricts the types of structural solutions that can be effected for solving the system problems under changing conditions.⁴ Innovations that create status differences, power positions, and unequal privileges have to be carefully guarded against. It is true, however, that some required activities are more problematic for the integration and stability of the norms than others.⁵ Production, for instance, is one of the most threatening activities in its sociological implications for it requires the instrumental organization of resources, the legitimation of hierarchically-arranged leadership roles, the disciplining of a labor force, and the routine assignment of differentially rewarding tasks. Various mechanisms, including task rotation, have been instituted to minimize the potentially disruptive consequences of production work. But with the use of these integrative devices, some sacrifice in production effectiveness has to be accepted.⁶ To follow a policy of strict rotation means, in actuality, that members not especially qualified to assume key instrumental positions eventually take a turn. Weber has pointed to the relationship between communal norms and instrumental activities as follows: “Communistic systems for the communal or associational organization of work are unfavorable to calculation and to the consideration of means for obtaining optimum production; because … they tend to be based on the direct feeling of mutual solidarity”.⁷

STATEHOOD AND CHANGE: THE KIBBUTZ’S DILEMMA

The 225 communes, with a membership of more than 80,000, are a fully integrated sector of the society’s institutional order and have contributed positively in many ways to Israel’s growth and international distinction.⁸ However, the kibbutz members have always faced to some degree the dilemma of maintaining a unique normative base and, at the same time, maximizing production goals.⁹ Yet the intensity of this dilemma has varied with the change in the kibbutzim’s relationship to the larger society.

In the period preceding statehood, 1918 to 1948, this internal dilemma was largely latent owing to the fact that the kibbutzim (as defense posts, immigrant training depots, cultural centers, models of grass-roots communism, and agricultural proving grounds) served a strategic multifunctional role.¹⁰ Hence they were not evaluated by strict standards of economic rationality. During this intense colonization period the kibbutzim were valued for their contribution to diverse goals and correspondingly received great amounts of financial support and positive prestige rewards without having to meet standards of production effectiveness. Land, long-term credit, trained personnel, wholesale trading stores and co-operative markets were made available to the kibbutzim through the wider co-operative structure that formed the basis of the Jewish community.¹¹ As Barber rightly argues, the kibbutzim benefited greatly from this external support.¹²

With the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, major structural changes took place in rapid sequence.¹³ The Israeli society, geared to reaching major goals effectively, entered a phase of widespread structural differentiation.¹⁴ In this period of major change, the original multifunctional kibbutz was placed in a more specialized role. The bulk of the kibbutzim’s quasi-military duties were transferred to the newly-formed Defense Force and their immigrant-training responsibilities were given to units developed for this purpose. In like manner, the kibbutzim’s important symbolic role, as pioneer elite, was generalized to the society as a whole. By virtue of their significant land holdings and the agricultural know-how of the members, the kibbutzim’s functional position was pared down to one of economic primacy...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Thirty Years of Kibbutz Research
• Social Research, Change, and the Kibbutz
• The Concept and Development of the Kibbutz
• Social Differentiation
• Family and Socialization
• Work and Production
• Bibliographical Subject Index