Kibbutzim

Kibbutzim or Kibbutz are intentional communities spread across Israel and are connected to the left-wing of the Zionist movement. They have an estimated population of 120,000 people spread over 270 communities (or an average of 444 people per community). Noam Chomsky has said the early kibbutzim "came closer to the anarchist ideal than any other attempt that lasted for more than a very brief moment before destruction". Graham Purchase wrote that the kibbutz became "exactly the sort of modern communal village/small town life which Kropotkin had envisaged".

Decision-Making

Kibbutzim make decisions using democratic town meetings. At once Kibbutz:

Members met twice a week at town meetings to make decisions on items like the budget, electing officers, and punishing people who broke the community rules. Members elected a general secretary who prepared the meeting agendas, chaired the meetings, and served as the kibbutz's delegate in the federation of kibbutzim. The secretary received assistance from a secretariat, a nominating committee, an education committee, a high school committee, a cultural committee, a welfare committee, a security committee, and a landscape committee. Every kibbutz member at some point served as an officer, in a committee, or in some other position of authority. No officer was allowed to serve for more than two or three years, and the positions, like all work on the kibbutz, were unpaid.

Crime

According to Wikipedia: "the crime rate [in the Kibbutz] is lower than the national average by a significant margin." In 1940, a British airman stationed in Palestine wrote that in the kibbutzim, "The problem of violence has simply not arisen". In 1986, a study on Kibbutz Vatik noted that the kibbutz had never experienced any serious crime. James Horrox comments that these "remarks on the non-existence of crime were all made at a time when many of the communities were of equivalent size to small towns, or at least large villages, many of them housing well over a thousand people each."

Economy

With the absence of a fixed system of monetary rewards or punishments, four incentives emerged from the Kibbutz to get people to work:

1. Group productivity affects the whole community’s standard of living
2. Members control and choose where they work, gaining lots of satisfaction from labor
3. People develop personal feelings of pride about their work
4. People gain prestige and recognition from other members of the Kibbutz

Kibbutz members work two hours more a week than the average Israeli and despite having <1% of Israel's population, Kibbutz produce 9% of manufactured goods and 40% of Israel's agriculture.

Environmental Protection

Kibbutz Lotan, with its Center for Creative Ecology, practices and teaches visitors about organic gardening and construction with materials from the local landbase. The kibbutz's Center for Creative Ecology is also an environmental education, research and conservation institution. The Center offers academic programs in conjunction with the University of Massachusetts Amherst and certification courses in permaculture, sustainable design and training. Facilities include an interactive park for organic and urban agriculture, natural building and solar energy demonstrations as well as the energy-efficient EcoCampus, a neighborhood constructed from earth-plastered straw bales. The kibbutz's website reports, "Over the last four years Lotan, through its composting and recycling efforts, has reduced its overall waste disposal by 70% each year."

Kibbutz Ketura is leading Israel's development of solar technology, becoming a popular eco tourism attraction.

See Also

• Moshav