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Why Socialism Doesn't Work


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2019 Jun 4, 7:15pm   487 views  1 comment

by MisdemeanorRebel   ➕follow (12)   💰tip   ignore  

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https://www.ft.com/content/01e0cdcc-09fd-11df-8b23-00144feabdc0

At the time, she worked wherever the kibbutz needed her: in the communal kitchen, the fields, the chicken coop or the school. Kibbutzniks like her received no salary, only a meagre monthly allowance that was “a bit like pocket money”. In return, the community provided free housing, food, education, clothes, healthcare, transport and even cigarettes. If Ms Ozeri wanted to go and visit her family in Britain, the kibbutz assembly would discuss the merits of her case – and then vote on whether to pay for the ticket or not.

Today, Ms Ozeri brandishes a business card that identifies her as the “global sales coordinator” of Aran Packaging, a company that produces liquids packaging for the food industry. Located on the kibbutz, and owned by its members, the business boasts sales of almost $40m (€28m, £25m) a year and ships its goods to 35 countries across the world. Ms Ozeri receives a salary which she is not only entitled to keep, but that is also considerably higher than the pay awarded to farmhands and workers on the assembly line. She says Aran’s pay scale is broadly similar to other private sector companies.

Equality, once at the core of the kibbutz ideology, has been breached in other ways, too. Tasks that used to be performed by kibbutzniks regardless of their education and background – such as washing the dishes – are today largely the preserve of hired workers from outside the community.

Attitudes towards business have also changed radically. As recently as the 1980s, Nachshon members voted down a plan to open a petrol station on a nearby highway, because it would force the proud kibbutzniks to “serve” motorists.

Today, many kibbutzim not only have thriving businesses – including in the tourism industry – that operate exactly like other private enterprises, but some have even decided to embrace the capital market: 22 kibbutz companies are currently listed on stock exchanges in Tel Aviv, New York and London. With annual sales worth Shk37bn ($10bn, €7bn, £6bn), the kibbutz companies account for about 10 per cent of Israel’s industrial production.

https://www.ft.com/content/01e0cdcc-09fd-11df-8b23-00144feabdc0

What brought Kibbutzim to an end? A 1985 bailout, that made the public regard them as moochers. Then they became much more like employee owned private companies.

Read on.

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1   Ceffer   2019 Jun 4, 11:23pm  

It seems the original intent was tedious and back breaking reclamation of scoured lands and infrastructure development. Once that was done, it was 'don't bogart the profits'.

I had a friend in college who spent two summers in an old school kibbutz, and he said it was slavery. They really kicked his ass from dawn to dusk.

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