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allodial
08-26-15, 01:39 AM
The Kibbutz: Awakening from Utopia
2777


The Israeli collective farms known as kibbutzim, once the darlings of Israeli society, have fallen on hard times in this hyper-capitalist era, in part because of the decreasing importance of agriculture and the decline of Zionism even among Israelis. Even the most prosperous of the kibbutzim explored by Gavron, a veteran journalist (Israel After Begin), find it difficult to retain the children who have grown up there. Stock market investment, land development and salaries based on a member's worth to the collective (rather than equal pay for all)--all anathema to the movement's early 20th-century founders--are now common practice on some kibbutzim. Gavron provides historical and contemporary snapshots of a dozen kibbutzim. The early history he tells through the story of some of the kibbutz pioneers is fascinating, if not new, and offers a necessary basis for those new to the subject. The most illuminating parts of the book come in his interviews with contemporary kibbutz members--some of whom are very ready to admit the flaws of the system--and in his exploration of the effects of the communal child rearing that used to be a kibbutz hallmark. Gavron's recounting of the 1985 debt crisis that accelerated the movement's downward trend, however, will be confusing even to the knowledgeable, as is his description of the different types of financial perestroika that kibbutzim have undergone to maintain their viability. Gavron, who admits to a fondness for the kibbutz, states in his conclusion that the death knell is arriving for many of the collectives, once dubbed the experiment that didn't fail. As one member puts it, "It is a painful process. There is a feeling of loss, of uncertainty. No one knows where it will end." (May) --Publishers Weekly


The kibbutz, or agricultural and light industrial commune, was one of Israel's chief instruments of state-building. Initiated in 1910 as a socialist experiment in cooperative action, it provided work for newcomers, promoted their settlement in inland areas of Palestine, and afforded a sense of purpose and solidarity. At the time of statehood, Israel's national borders were largely determined by the location of the most distant kibbutzim, and, writes journalist Daniel Gavron, the kibbutz movement "held a unique position of prestige, providing many of the nation's best military commanders, as well as a third of its government."

Over the last half century, Gavron argues, and especially since the 1970s, the kibbutzim have lost some of their utopian sensibility. For example, where before each kibbutz worker held an equal share of the commune's holdings, there are now differentials in income, and decades of inflation and borrowing compromised the financial integrity of several of the most important communities. Many Israelis consider kibbutzim to be wonderful places for children and the elderly, but not for career-minded workers in the prime of life.

All that notwithstanding, the kibbutz continues to play an important role in Israeli life, Gavron writes, producing some 40 percent of the country's crops and about 10 percent of its manufactured goods. His study of this remarkable, and in the main successful, experiment is a useful contribution to Israeli history. --Gregory McNamee


The Death of Gentle Socialism
By Eric Maroney on October 20, 2008

The Kibbutz: Awakening from Utopia makes for interesting reading during a time when world capitalism as we know it, seemingly vindicated by its victory from state controlled economies of the Soviet Union and Eastern Block in the late 80's and early 90's, is tanking.

Gavron's work explores what was considered the most successful and long lasting enterprise in collective living, the numerous kibbutzim established in Palestine and the State of Israel beginning in the late nineteenth century. During the mid-to late 1980s the kibbutz movement, in general, suffered from the same extreme malaise and crisis of ideology which brought down the Soviet Union and the Eastern Block. However the death of the kibbutzim is a strange cousin to these larger trends, since they were voluntary, democratic entities. People were not forced to forgo private property and live collectively. Living on a kibbutz was an individual choice.

Yet the crisis came anyway, and this work details the response of various kibbutzim to the sudden disenchantment of Israelis from the collective form of life. Privatization to varying degrees was adopted by the movement, essentially transforming the socialist structures of the kibbutz into private enterprises of varying styles and degrees.

Gavron points out that the kibbutz set out to create a new human being, one who put the group first and the individual last. In many ways, this enterprise failed. Yet we suddenly live in a world today where privatization has finally trampled over its limitations, yet there is no alternative collective life any longer. Gavron's work, it seems, is timely reading. What can we look to now? -Amazon comment

Related:

The Kibbutz: Awakening from Utopia (Amazon links (http://www.amazon.com/Kibbutz-Awakening-Utopia-Daniel-Gavron/dp/0847695263/)
Kibbutz Crisis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz_crisis)
What Actually Undermined the Kibbutz (http://forward.com/opinion/127122/what-actually-undermined-the-kibbutz/)
Nuclear Family (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_family)
Kibbutz and Child Rearing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz#Kibbutz_and_child_rearing)

allodial
10-23-15, 06:41 AM
Delayed addenda... it seems uncanny this thing called Communism, as if "mankind" needed help from "a special Commune-enlightened group" as to how to live life. How uncanny it is that the very same clique that have repeatedly set out to destroy traditional families, seem to fall silent over the fact that in the traditional family there isn't a hint of capitalism, money changing, this is where a child learns charity, everything is for the most part 'free'. If Communists were truly into charitable communes (instead control over the assets or resources of others), then why have they repeatedly and brutally set out to destroy the most fundamental, organic, patriarchal-matriarchical commune ever (i.e. the traditional family) and attempt to substitute and subvert it with imaginary political entities?

3115
This doesn't work (just look at Soviet history).

As many times as Communism has shown to be a failure, why do they keep repeating the same mistakes at the expense of millions if not billions of victims--including but not limited to innocent children?

3116
There aren't price tags, cash registers and security guards at every corner of little Johnny's house. In the traditional family Bobby and Suzie learn responsibility and the mom and dad make good ensamples so that when the kids grow up and deal with the external world, they are less vulnerable to exploitation. So why don't the Communists leave the traditional family commune alone?

shikamaru
10-25-15, 02:18 PM
I say the destruction of the family was tested first on black families under the guise of the "War on Poverty".

BLBereans
10-25-15, 03:33 PM
Those who were inclined to begin the destruction of the family in America started long before Lyndon Johnson's 1964 "War on Poverty" proposal. It started in the mid-1800s at the first stages of the "feminist movement". Women who began to reject the doctrine of coverture as belittling or degrading rather than protecting and shielding started a snowball of misguided decisions and actions which has culminated into the full-out assault on, and redefinition of, the most powerful and Divine union on earth; husband and wife. "Women's Suffrage" was used as the catalyst for attacking the traditional family unit. No doubt that the movement had some merit in certain situations, but the road to hell is paved with "good intentions".

Also, after that first 'obstacle' was complete, the outrageous notion that a woman who stays at home, keeps the house and cares for her own children is wasting her life, gained traction and acceptance in the public discourse. The outright mistreatment of women (rejecting God's view that man and woman are of equal value) on the part of some men justifiably bred an outcry for change of that treatment. Ironically, that outcry was used as a springboard to ultimately reject God's view regarding the holy union of husband and wife. The traditional family unit begins to weaken and the continuous attack from all angles makes the perfect environment for the ongoing growth of the "Nanny State".

It all starts at the top. A strong husband and wife, who jointly seek out and accept God's Will and Grace, will avoid "poverty" and those who claim to "war" on it.

I regard the targeting of black families with the "War on Poverty" as merely a specific tactic determined to be the best option for use on a specific people. No race or creed is let alone in this regard; different tactics are employed for each specific target with the same ultimate goal in mind - CONTROL OVER OTHERS.

shikamaru
10-25-15, 03:45 PM
I regard the targeting of black families with the "War on Poverty" as merely a specific tactic determined to be the best option for use on a specific people.

With this I concur.



No race or creed is let alone in this regard; different tactics are employed for each specific target with the same ultimate goal in mind - CONTROL OVER OTHERS.

I would like to revise my statement.
The destruction of the black family in the United States began with the slave trade and continued as a practice thereafter.

Destruction of the family unit seems to be a war tactic.
The modern tactics for destruction of the family was tested first on African-Americans in the 1960.

Overall, I possess some concurrence with your statement.

shikamaru
10-25-15, 03:59 PM
Another point in all of this that should be addressed is female hypergamy.

Feminism has removed the societal restrictions on female hypergamy while enlisting government, law, media, and education on restricting men's reproductive strategies.

allodial
10-25-15, 09:57 PM
Another point in all of this that should be addressed is female hypergamy.

Feminism has removed the societal restrictions on female hypergamy while enlisting government, law, media, and education on restricting men's reproductive strategies.

Many women in the USA and UK and NZ have been playing right into crafty hands. Women are in a worse situation than they were in the 60s. Now hardly any sane and aware man wants to be responsible for women who lack discretion (who become 'the town bicycle'). They have to resort to giving sexual favors, some even give their kids over to sexual favors to get money or to acquire favors. The reality is, these sorts of women will reject the idea of being subject to a man but then go out and slave away for creatures of men and willingly participate in degrading sexual conduct as opposed to having upright relations with an upright husband.


Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion. Proverbs 11:22

Many so-called Christian women who worship State idols are much like the Pharisees and company who rejected the true shepherd and instead received a worthless shepherd instead--they get to become predators helping the Rogue State divorce money and resources from men. A society that exists to support the pleasures of feral women is perhaps more of a zoo than any civil society.

shikamaru
10-31-15, 05:07 PM
Many women in the USA and UK and NZ have been playing right into crafty hands. Women are in a worse situation than they were in the 60s. Now hardly any sane and aware man wants to be responsible for women who lack discretion (who become 'the town bicycle'). They have to resort to giving sexual favors, some even give their kids over to sexual favors to get money or to acquire favors. The reality is, these sorts of women will reject the idea of being subject to a man but then go out and slave away for creatures of men and willingly participate in degrading sexual conduct as opposed to having upright relations with an upright husband.



Many so-called Christian women who worship State idols are much like the Pharisees and company who rejected the true shepherd and instead received a worthless shepherd instead--they get to become predators helping the Rogue State divorce money and resources from men. A society that exists to support the pleasures of feral women is perhaps more of a zoo than any civil society.

BINGO...

At my age, nothing available but used goods.

It will be really interesting when my generation is in their 50s and 60s.

If you are a man, I recommend having your evac plans hot and on standby.....